Jim sat there with the faint shine of the stars falling soft on the rag carpet at his feet and thought what wonderful people the Starkleys were. They had taken him in and treated him like one of the family--and like a white man. Now that Peter was coming home and would be able to help with the work, he would go away and show John Starkley that he had found his courage and his manhood. He had made his plans in a general way weeks before. He would go to another province and enlist in the artillery or in the infantry under an assumed name; if he "made good," or got killed, John Starkley would tell all the good he could of him to his family in Stanley. Already he felt lonely, a dreary chill of homesickness, at the thought of leaving Beaver Dam. A door opened and closed downstairs, but Jim Hammond was too busy with his thoughts and high resolves to hear the faint sounds. He even did not hear the feet on the carpeted stairs--and a hand was on the latch of the door before he knew that some one was about to enter the room. He sat rigid and stared at the door. The door opened and some one entered who bulked large and tall in the pale half gloom of the room. The visitor halted and turned his face toward the bed. "Who's there?" he asked; and Jim could see the shoulders lower and advance a little and the whole figure become tense as if for attack. "It's me, Peter!" whispered Jim sharply "Shut the door quick!" "You! You, Jim Hammond!" said Peter in a voice of amazement and anger. "What the mischief are you doing here?" Without turning his face from the bed he shut the door behind him with his heel. "Light the candle and pull down the shade. Let me see you." Jim got to his feet and reached for the shade, but Peter spoke before he touched it. "No! The candle first!" exclaimed Peter, with an edge to his voice. "I don't trust you in the dark any more than I trust you in the woods." Hammond struck a match and lit the candle, then drew down the shade and turned with his back to the window. His face was pale. "I didn't figure on your getting home so soon," he said in an unsteady voice. "I didn't intend to be here. I thought I'd be gone before you came." "What are you doing here, anyway?" demanded Peter. "What's the game? Sitting in my room, on my bed, quite at home, by thunder! And your father thinks you are in the States. Does my father know you are here?" Jim smiled faintly. "Yes, he knows--and all your folks know. I've been here since about the middle of October, working, and sleeping in this room every night. My people don't know where I am--but when I get to France you can tell them. Your father doesn't know that it was I who fired that shot--and when I found you hadn't told him that, or even that I was a deserter, I felt it was up to me to do my best for you while you were away. So I've worked hard and been happy here; and I'll be sorry to go away--but I must go now that you're home again. Don't tell my people I'm here, Peter."