“Yes, you see the report has reached her about what the lynchers said in regard to hiding Pete's body. You know how superstitious the negroes are, and she is simply crazy to recover the--the remains. She wants to bury her boy, Carson, and she refuses to believe that some one can't find him and bring him home. She seems to think you can.” “She wants me to--” He went no further. “If it is possible, Carson. The whole thing is so awful that it has driven me nearly wild. You will know, perhaps, if anything can be done, but, of course, if it is wholly out of the question--” “Helen”--in his desperation he had formulated a plan--“there is something that you ought to know. You have every right to know it, and yet I'm bound in honor not to let it out to any one. Last night,” he went on, modestly, “in the hope of formulating some plan to avert the coming trouble, I asked Keith to get a number of my best friends together. We met at Blackburn's store. No positive, sworn vows were made. It was only the sacred understanding between men that the matter was to be held inviolate, owing to the personal interests of every man who had committed himself. You see, they came at my suggestion, as friends of mine true and loyal, and it seems to me that I'd have a moral right, even now, to take another into the body--another whom I trust as thoroughly and wholly as any one of them. Do you understand, Helen?” “No, I'm in the dark, Carson,” she said, with a feeble smile. “You see, I want to speak freely to you,” he continued. “I want to tell you some things you ought to know, and yet I am not free to do so unless--unless you will tacitly join us. Helen, do you understand? Are you willing to become one of us so far as absolute secrecy is concerned?” “I am willing to do anything you'd advise, Carson,” the girl replied, groping for his possible meaning through the cloud of mystery his queer words had thrown around him. “If something took place that I ought to know, and you are willing to confide it to me, I assure you I can be trusted. I'd die rather than betray it.” “Then, as one of us, I'll tell you,” Carson said, impressively. “Helen, Pete, is not dead.” “Not dead?” She stared at him incredulously from her great, beautiful eyes. Slowly her white hand went out till it rested on his, and remained there, quivering. “No, he's alive and so far in safe keeping, free from harm at present, anyway.” Her fingers tightened on his hand, her sweet, appealing face drew nearer to his; she took a deep breath. “Oh, Carson, don't say that unless you are _quite_ sure.” “I am absolutely sure,” he said; and then, as they sat, her hand still lingering unconsciously on his, he explained it all, leaving the part he had taken out of the recital as much as possible, and giving the chief credit to his supporters. She sat spellbound, her sympathetic soul melting and flowing into the warm current of his own while he talked as it seemed to her no human being had ever talked before.