Travis's heart seemed to freeze tightly. He tried to breathe--he only gasped--and the corners of his mouth tightened and refused to open. He felt the blood rush up from around his loins, and leave him paralyzed and weak. In sheer desperation he threw the gun to his shoulder, and the next instant he would have fired the load into the face of the thing with its voice of the dead, had not something burst on his head with a staggering, overpowering blow, and despite his efforts to stand, his knees gave way beneath him and it seemed pleasant for him to lie prone upon the floor.... When he awakened an hour afterwards, he sat up, bewildered. His gun lay beside him, but the window was closed securely and bolted. No night air came in. The Davenport and pillow were there as before. His head ached and there was a bruised place over his ear. He walked into his own room and lit the lamp. "I may have fallen and struck my head," he said, bewildered with the strangeness of it all. "I may have," he repeated--"but if I didn't see Tom Travis's ghost to-night there is no need to believe one's senses." He opened the door and let in two setters which fawned upon him and licked his hand. All his nervousness vanished. "No one knows the comfort of a dog's company," he said, "who does not love a dog?" Then he bathed his face and head and went to sleep. It was after midnight when Jack Bracken led Captain Tom in and put him to bed. "A close shave for you, Cap'n Tom," he said--"I struck just in time. I'll not leave you another night with the door unlocked." Then: "But poor fellow--how can we blame him for wandering off, after all those years, and trying to get back again to his boyhood home." CHAPTER XII A MIDNIGHT GUARD Jack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on the cot, placed in the room next to Captain Tom, and prepared to sleep again. But the excitement of the night had been great; his sudden awakening from sleep, his missing Captain Tom, and finding him in time to prevent a tragedy, had aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far from his eyes. And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it passed before him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness. It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow of it. Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of little Jack, and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted outlaw. He had his plans all arranged--he and the Bishop--and now as the village blacksmith he would begin the life of an honest man. Respected--his heart beat proudly to think of it. Respected--how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man who is not.