"Are you going there with the women?" he inquired, turning to Sim Gage. Sim colored. "No. Wid and me'll be over with the soldiers. We're going to stick together." "Better bunk in my shack, then. Go over to the barracks, both of you, and get rifles and an extra pistol each. I want both of you on patrol." "You see," he explained, as he drew the two apart, "we don't know what those anarchist ruffians up there may do. They may drop down here by either fork any time, day or night." He spoke briefly also to Mary Gage before he handed her in at the door of her new domicile: "Sim and Wid both think that only one car went back up the road above the ranch. That means that the other car is up in the mountains between the Two Forks, probably in the Reserve. For a time there probably won't anything happen. You mustn't be scared--we're just taking the proper precautions now. This is very valuable Government property." "Are we at the dam here?" asked Mary Gage. "I can hear the water--it's very heavy, isn't it?" "It never stops. We don't hear it, because we're used to it--I don't think it will bother you very long. We'll try to make you comfortable." He turned, offering her his arm, on which he placed her hand. He was a trifle surprised to see that Sim Gage without a word had passed to the other side of his wife, also giving her an arm. He walked along slowly and gravely, limping, silent as he had been all the afternoon, but made no sign of his own discomfort, indeed did not speak at all. "Both of you are fit for the hospital. Well, all right, it may be a good place for you after all." As he spoke, frowning, Doctor Barnes stood back and allowed Annie to lead Mary Gage into the vacated rooms of the chief engineer. "Doc, what did you mean when you said that there just now?" asked Sim Gage, when they turned back from the door. "About her and the hospital?" "I've brought her down here, Sim," said Doctor Barnes directly, "principally because, with her consent and yours, I want to see if I can't do something for her eyes." "Her eyes! Why--what do you mean?" "There's one chance in a hundred that she'll see again." Doctor Allen Barnes, his face unshaven, dirty, haggard, a man looking neither major nor physician now, turned squarely to the man whom he addressed. "I don't know for sure," said he, "but then, it may be true." "Her eyes?-- Her eyes!" Doctor Barnes felt on his arm as savage a grip as he ever had known. Sim Gage's face changed as he turned away. "Good God A'mighty! If she could _see_!" His own face seemed suddenly pale beneath its grime. CHAPTER XXX BEFORE DAWN