Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown stars. * * * * * The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station. "Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back. Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still here--and waiting for you." Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became alert, clear-brained. "How is he?" "Pretty bad." "What's it all about? How did it happen?" "I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a carriage. Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go ahead--straight." He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the border, and who has no nice shading in act or word. "Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause. "I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now." That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to shudder at the sight of blood. Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies." The girl drew away. "Not this minute--to-night?" "Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said this. Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can refuse, specially as it makes his dying--" He stopped there.