Dick Compton was not one of the most delicate of men, either in action or perception, but he was a good fellow in the main, with quite enough of intuition to foresee the worst perils of a situation, and with quite enough of presence of mind to act quickly in a desperate emergency. There was yet no breath or motion in the prostrate man: he would die very soon if not already dead: something might yet be done for him: but that something, if done at all, must be done at once. Besides, if death should prove to be real, he would himself be a little better circumstanced if found trying to preserve the life of his antagonist, than if discovered to have let him die without effort. A mile to the westward, and at the side of the very road at the edge of which he was standing, was the residence of one of the two doctors of the immediate section, and medical assistance might be procured, with the aid of the fallen man's horse, in a brief period. With this thought in mind, and in far less time after the occurrence of the catastrophe than it has needed to put it upon record, Dick Compton had unfastened the horse of Carlton Brand from the post, swung himself into the saddle, and was galloping away westward, a little doubtful in mind whether he was indeed going after a doctor or looking for a convenient gallows and a hangman,--and wishing, from the bottom of his soul, that he had never entertained quite so good an opinion of his personal prowess as that which had led him into such a terrible position. Once, as he galloped on, he caught sight of his new military trowsers, and found himself thinking whether, when they hung soldiers, they allowed them to retain their uniform or subjected them to the degrading alternative of the prison gray! And that is all, of the very peculiar reflections of Mr. Dick Compton as he sped away after the doctor, that needs to be put upon record. Kitty Hood, meanwhile, leaving the school-house perhaps ten minutes after her lover, had sped along the path at the base of the woods, intent on going over to the residence of the Brands and seeking advice, if not assistance, from Elsie, in her dilemma. She had quite overcome her anger, now, and taken into her young heart a full supply of that which very often follows the former--anxiety; and her feet moved as glibly, in the better cause of reconciliation, as her tongue had done not long before in a very unreasonable lovers' quarrel.