Both Dick and Echo might have had a change of heart when they met again. Echo was young. Dick had wandered far. Both had lost touch with common interests. Jack Payson had entered her life as a factor. He was eager and impetuous; Dick was settled and world-worn by hardship and much physical suffering. Now Jack was at the altar racked with mental torture, while Dick waited in the garden for his traitorous friend. The innocent cause of the tragedy was sweetly and calmly replying to the questions of the marriage-ritual, while Jack was looking, as Allen said to himself, "darned squeamish." "According to these words, it is the will of God that nothing shall sever the marriage-bond," were the words that fell upon Allen's ears as he stooped to look in the window at the wedding-party. "The Sky Pilot's taking a long time to make the hitch. Darned if I couldn't hitch up a twenty-mule team in the time that he's takin' to get them two to the pole," said Allen, speaking to himself. Dick had grown impatient at Jack's absence, and wandered back from the garden to the front of the house. Spying Allen, he greeted him with "Hello, Uncle Jim." "That's my name," answered Allen suspiciously. "But I ain't uncle to every stranger that comes along." "I'm no stranger," laughed Dick. "You know me." "Do I?" replied Allen, unconvinced. "Who are you?" "The poor orphan you took from an asylum and made a man of--Dick Lane." "Dick Lane!" repeated the astonished ranchman. "Come back from the dead!" "No, I ain't dead yet," answered Dick, holding out his hand, which Allen gingerly grasped, as if he expected to find it thin air. "I wasn't killed. I have been in the hospital for a long time. I wrote Jack--he knows." "My God!" Allen cried. "Jack knows--you wrote to him--he knows." Over and over he repeated the astonishing news which had been broken to him so suddenly. Here was a man, as if back from the dead, standing in his own dooryard, telling him that Jack knew he was alive. No word had been told him. What could Echo say? This, then, explained Jack's strange request, and his distress. "And Echo?" Dick questioned, glancing toward the house. "Echo." The name aroused Allen. He saw at once that he must act definitely and quickly. Echo must not see Dick now. It was too late. The secret of his return on the wedding-day must be known only to the three men. "Look here, Dick," he commanded. "You mustn't let her see you--she mustn't know you are alive." Dick was growing confused over the mystery which was being thrown about Echo Allen. First Jack had told him he must wait to see her, and now her father tells him he must never see her again, or let her know that he is alive. His strength was being overtaxed by all this evasion and delay. "Dick," said Allen, with deep sympathy, laying his hand upon the man's shoulder. "She's my daughter an' I want her life to be happy. Can't you see? Do you understand? She thinks you're dead."