At the instant of saying this, he set the gun inside the door, snatched some blankets from the bedroom and came out again. Tira stepped aside to let him pass. It looked as if he would have walked over her. He covered Dick warmly, picked up the boy's glasses from the snow and dropped them into his pocket. With that involuntary act, the emotional assault of the whole thing nearly had him. He remembered Dick's eyes as he had sometimes seen them without their glasses, wistful and vaguely soft. Always his eyes, denuded of the lenses behind which they lived, had a child's look of helpless innocence, and here he was floored by life's regardless cruelty. Though, if he was not only floored but actually done for, he was not yet the one to suffer. He was away in that sanctuary of the assaulted body known as unconsciousness, and Raven did not dwell for more than an instant on "the pity of it" all. Tira had come out of the hut and, at sight of Dick under his mound of covering, she gave a little cry and stooped to him with outstretched hand, perhaps with an idea of somehow easing him. But Raven caught her wrist before she touched him. "Don't," said he. "I've sent down for the sled." "Is he----?" she whispered, stepping back as he released her. "I don't know," said he. "You can't do anything. Don't stay here." But she stood still, staring down at the mound of blankets and Raven again on his knees beside it, his fingers on Dick's wrist. "Didn't you hear me?" said he curtly. "You're to get the child and come to my house for the night." "Will he"--and now he saw her mind was with Tenney--"will he be arrested?" "I hope," Raven allowed himself the bitterness of saying, "I hope he'll get imprisonment for life." And there was such sternness in the kind voice that Tira turned and went, half running, up the path to the back road and home. That night at eleven, when the house had quieted, and Raven was alone in the library, he permitted himself a glimpse at the denied emotional aspect of the day. Jerry had got quickly to the top of the hill and Dick had been moved down without disaster, Tenney, white-faced and bewildered, lending his strength as he was told. Raven called upon him for this and that, and kept him by them on the way down to the house, so that Tira might have time to snatch the child and hurry away. At the moment of nearing the house he remembered her, and that if Tenney went directly back by the high road, he might meet her. "Here!" This to Tenney, who was sagging on behind the sled, and who at once hurried along to his side. "Go back to the hut and see if I've left the key in the door. If it's there, you can lock up and bring it down to me. If it isn't, don't come back."