She looked at him in a dumb surprise. She, too, in her heart knew that this man was blameless. He had done his duty, and had nearly lost his life for it at the hands of her husband. Now, he had come to lift them out of the hideous nightmare into which they had fallen. He had come to offer them peace and quiet and plenty in exchange for the future of poverty and shame and despair which menaced them. They were to escape into God’s great hills, away from the averted looks and whispering tongues and the temptations to drown his trouble that so constantly beset the father of her children. Despite his faults she still loved Tom Pelton; he was a kind and loving husband and father. Out on the range there still waited a future for him. When she thought of it a lump rose in her throat for very happiness. She, who had been like a rock beside him in his trouble, broke down now and buried her head in her husband’s coat. “Don’t you, honey—now, don’t you cry.” The big man had lost all his pomposity, and was comforting his sweetheart as simply as a boy. “It’s all been my fault. I’ve been doing wrong for years—trying to pull myself out of the mire by my bootstraps. By Gad, you’re a man, Sam Yesler, that’s what you are. If I don’t turn ovah a new leaf I’d ought to be shot. We’ll make a fresh start, sweetheart. Dash me, I’m nothing but a dashed baby.” And with that the overwrought man broke down, too. Yesler, moved a good deal himself, maintained the burden of the conversation cheerfully. “That’s all settled, then. Tell you I’m right glad to get a competent man to put in charge. Things have been running at loose ends, because I haven’t the time to look after them. This takes a big load off my mind. You better arrange to go up there with me as soon as you have time, Pelton, and look the ground over. You’ll want to make some changes if you mean to take your family up there. Better to spend a few hundreds and have things the way you want them for Mrs. Pelton than to move in with things not up to the mark. Of course, I’ll put the house in the shape you want it. But we can talk of that after we look it over.” In his embarrassment he looked so much the boy, so much the culprit caught stealing apples and up for sentence, that Norma Pelton’s gratitude took courage. She came across to him and held out both hands, the shimmer of tears still in the soft brown eyes. “You’ve given us more than life, Mr. Yesler. You can’t ever know what you have done for us. Some things are worse than death to some people. I don’t mean poverty, but—other things. We can begin again far away from this tainted air that has poisoned us. I know it isn’t good form to be saying this. One shouldn’t have feelings in public. But I don’t care. I think of the children—and Tom. I didn’t expect ever to be happy again, but we shall. I feel it.”