The colonel's little wife turned to Alex Singleton's daughter, took her hands, bent forward and kissed her on the brow. Tot stared; then a tear traced a crooked line down the road-dust of either cheek. No other woman had ever kissed her, not even her own stout, whistling mother, that she remembered. In that instant her whole weary, fiery mountain heart gave itself in everlasting love and devotion to Mrs. Mason. "Let's go into the house, dear," softly said the older woman. They went in. The colonel hastened back to the veranda. "Rice is coming," he announced. To Mayfield, "Please sit down, sir." The three of them sat down. The colonel slyly studied the wounded man's face, and he found it interesting. Soon the doctor arrived. Rice dressed the hillman's arm in record time, and was paid on the spot for his services--by the young fellow he had always known as Arnold Mason. Wolfe then went with Mayfield into the dining room, where they had supper. Immediately after they had finished the meal, Mayfield was shown to a bedroom upstairs and in the back half of the house. "Don't bother to run away," and Wolfe smiled a very pleasant smile. "You may go home tomorrow. I won't give you any trouble over trying to pot me; you see, I understand fully just how hard a prison term is for any mountain man! You won't try to do me harm in the future, will you? I want you to promise me that." "Shore," Mayfield nodded. "I promise. You're a good feller, Little Buck, a dang good feller." Mayfield had expected anything but mercy. But he was not too bewildered to grind his teeth and fling a vile, whispered curse at the door when Wolfe closed it behind him. When Wolfe went back to the veranda, the lights had been cut off to keep away a swarm of annoying summer beetles. He saw that the colonel and a slender figure in white sat in rockers near the front steps. "Miss Singleton--who wants me to call her Tot, like everybody else does--" began Colonel Mason, "has told me about the difficulties you had and--er, expect to have. It looks bad, Arnold; there's no denying it. You can't arrest and imprison your own people, of course. Frankly, I don't quite see how you're going to manage it, son." Wolfe stepped to the veranda post and put his back to it. "You've always believed in me," he said earnestly. "I want you to continue to believe in me. I'm not to the barrier yet. There are six miles of narrow-gauge road to be built before the barrier is reached--the Devil's Gate, you know. No use worrying over things in the distance, father, eh? This is what I've got to do--when I get to the barrier, I'll cross it, or go under it, around it, or through it. I don't know how. I know only that it must be done."