Nan stirred. She reached out and tucked the long skirts of the coat under the man's shoulders with that mother instinct at once so solicitous, so tender. She shifted her position which had become cramped with her long vigil. These were moments of darkness, literal and mental. Her anxiety and dread were almost overwhelming. The waiting seemed interminable. She raised her eyes from her yearning regard of the still, bandaged head with its pale features. She sighed, as she turned them in another direction, toward an object lying beneath the shadow of a great red willow near by. It was a dark object, huddled and, like the other, quite still. A curious sort of fascination held her for some moments, then, almost reluctantly, as though impelled by the trend of her feelings, her gaze wandered in the direction whence was wafted toward her a pungent reek of burning. It was the dimly outlined skeleton of the station house, roofless and partly fallen, white-ashed and still faintly smoking. For long moments she regarded this sign of the destruction which had been wrought. Nor was the sigh which escaped her wholly of regret. A deep stirring was in her heart. She was thinking of the heroic battle which the station home had witnessed. She was thinking of the desperate odds one man had faced within those four walls. She was thinking, too, of the victory which ultimately had been his. But the cost. She shuddered. And her eyes came back to the white upturned features of the man before her. She started. The man's eyes were open. Tenderly she raised a hand and smoothed the cold forehead with its soft palm. Tears of emotion had gathered in her eyes on the instant. But they did not overflow down her cheeks. The eyes closed again. The lids moved slowly, as though reluctant to perform their office. The girl literally held her breath. Would they open again? Or---- Her question was answered almost on the instant. They reopened. This time even more widely. They were staring straight up at the starlit sky, quite unmoving. There was no consciousness in them, and barely life. Nan waited for some long apprehensive moments. Her heart was full of a wild, new-born hope. But fear held her, too. At last she moved. She withdrew herself gently but swiftly. Then she stood up, a picture of dapper womanhood in the white shirt-waist and loose riding breeches which the coat spread over the man's body should have held concealed. A moment later the darkness swallowed her up as she sped down the trail which passed near by. With her going there crept into the man's vacant eyes the first real sign of life.