He looked up eagerly as she entered, his eyes full of anxious question. She touched his hand kindly and sat close beside him as she talked. "You want to know all about it, don't you?" she asked, softly. "Well, it is all over. He was alive, after all, and I would not believe it. But now you need never trail him again, you can rest now, for he is dead. Somebody else has--has owed him a grudge, too. They think I am the somebody, but you don't believe that?" He shook his head decidedly. "No," she continued; "though for one moment, Joe, I thought that it might have been you. Yes, I did; for of course I knew it was only weakness would keep you from it, if you were in reach of him. But I remembered at once that it could not be, for the hand that struck him was strong." He assented in his silent way, and watched her face closely, as if to read the shadows of thought thrown on it by her feelings. "It's awful, ain't it?" she whispered. "It is what I said I hoped for, and just yet I can't be sorry--I can't! But, after this stir is all over, I know it will trouble me, make me sorry because I am not sorry now. I can't cry, but I do feel like screaming. And see! every once in a while my hands tremble; I tremble all over. Oh, it is awful!" She buried her face in her hands. Only to him did she show any of the feeling with which the death of the man touched her. "And you can't tell me anything of how it was done?" she said, at last. "You so near--did you see any one?" She longed to ask if he had seen Overton, but dared not utter his name, lest he might suspect as she did. Each hour that went by was an added gain to her for him. Of course he had struck, not knowing who the man was. If he had known, it would have been so easy to say, "I found him robbing the cabin. I killed him," and there would have been no further question concerning it. "But if all the other bars were beaten down between us, this one would keep me from ever shaking hands with him again. Why should it have been he out of all the camp? Oh, it makes my heart ache!" While she sat thus, with miserable thoughts, others came to the door, and looking up, she saw Akkomi, who looked on her with keen, accusing eyes. "No--it is not true, Akkomi," she said, in his own jargon. "Keep silent for a little while of the things these people do not know--a little while, and then I can tell you who it is I am shielding, but not yet." "Him!" and the eyes of the Indian turned to the paralytic. "No--not him; truly not," she said, earnestly. "It is some one you would want to help if you knew--some one who is going fast on the path from these people. They will learn soon it is not I; but till then, keep silence." "Dan--where?" he asked, laconically, and her face paled at the question.