And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to a thunder. The heart of Mary Brown beat faster, though she could not see, but only felt the coming of the stranger. The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay, and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe--some vast and preternatural change--some forest fire which came galloping faster than even their fleet limbs could carry them. Yet all beyond the pale of her camp-fire's light was silence, utter and complete silence. It seemed as if a muscular energy went into the intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except a faint whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her. But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away the sound of the street below. It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes of the two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly fainted when a voice sounded directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated voice: "Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire." She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward that sound. She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her and that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself the exclamation escaped her--"McGurk!" The voice spoke again: "Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely." "What are you?" "Your friend." "Is it you who followed me up the valley?" "Yes." "Come into the light. I must see you." A faint laughter reached her from the dark. "I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have come to you before." "But I feel--I feel almost as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh and blood." "It is better for you to feel that way about it," said the voice solemnly, "than to know me." "At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared for me." "You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me." "No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick Wilbur?" "That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and let him go." "But he didn't come back to me?"