THE GIRL, star-eyed and pink-cheeked now, tells him of her home "down east," of how keen she was to come to the wild, wonderful west, of how she thinks that "one crowded hour of glorious life" is worth a whole leaden existence. That reminds her of her graduating essay, which she digs out of the trunk, tied with baby-blue ribbon. "One Crowded Hour" was her burning topic, but her hours and days and years have been crowded only with homely toil and poverty and worries. THE MAN, softened incredibly, tells her she is the gentlest thing he ever knew.... He takes the blue ribbon and says he's going to keep it for luck. There is a beautiful, wordless moment for her, touched by magic into girlhood again. Then--shouts, galloping hoofs, shots! THE MAN springs to his feet, hands on his guns. BROTHER, at door of rear room, his old pistol describing wavering circles in his shaking hand, cries hoarsely, "Harriet Mary, you come here to me! That's not the sheriff! That's THE HAWK!" THE MAN, with a gentle word to her, tells her to stand aside.... "They'll never put THE HAWK in a cage!" THE GIRL, after a dazed moment, turns to a veritable fury of resolution. The east-bound train whistles. There is still a chance, if she can get him on board. Sound of posse riding nearer. She makes MAN hide under the curtain where her dresses hang. BROTHER starts toward the front door but she seizes him roughly, pushing him back toward the bedroom. "Listen," he gasps, "Harriet Mary--that's THE HAWK!" "I don't care! I don't care! I don't _care_! You hush! You keep still!" She pushes him into the room so violently that he falls, coughing terribly, to the floor. A look of fleeting horror crosses her face but she bangs and bolts the door. She draws the curtain more carefully over THE MAN, flings open the front door and calls above the clamor of the on-coming train-- "He's gone! Gone! We tried to keep him--quick--through the Pass! _Don't you see the hoof-prints?_" The posse wheels and thunders away. The train roars in. THE MAN, coming out from under the curtain, snatches up her thin hand, kisses it, dashes out. She forces herself to take the message out to the trainmen. She comes back, stands in strained and breathless listening.... The train pulls noisily out. Little by little her tension relaxes. The magic robe of youth, renewed, falls from her thin shoulders. At a sound from the inner room she gasps, clutches her hands together on her breast, her eyes wide with terror and remorse, starts running to her brother. CURTAIN! Can you _see_ it, Sally? Do you think it will "get across?" Will I be able to "put it over"? Now, convoyed by Rodney Harrison, I'm off to the Booking Office with a 'script, enchantingly typed in black and scarlet, under my arm and hope in my heart.