The whistles again,--and crowded forms at the doors of the cars. Tabernacle was in the distance, while men and women waded through the soggy snows to be the first to reach the train. Happiness gleamed on the features of the inhabitants of a beleagured land shut away from the world for weeks, men and women who saw no shame in the tears which streamed down their cheeks, and who sought not to hide them. Eagerly Barry searched the thronging crowd, at last to catch sight of a gigantic figure, his wolf-dog beside him. He leaped from the car even before it had ceased to move. "Ba'tiste!" he called. "Ba'tiste!" Great arms opened wide. A sob came from the throat of a giant. "_Mon_ Baree! _Mon_ Baree!" It was all he could say for a moment. Then, "_Mon_ Baree, he have come back to Ba'teese. Ah, Golemar! _Mon_ Baree, he have come back, he have come back!" "We've won, Ba'tiste! The line's open--they'll be running trains through before night. And if she keeps her promise--" "She?" Ba'tiste stared down at him. They had drawn away from the rest of the excited, noisy throng. "She? You mean--" "Agnes. You've been taking care of her, haven't you? I found her--she promised that she would tell the truth for me when I got back, that she would explain the lease and contract and tell Medaine that it was all a lie. She--" But Ba'tiste Renaud shook his head. "No, Baree. Eet is the too late. I have jus' come--from there. I have close her eyes." CHAPTER XXIV Dead! Houston saw Medaine Robinette pass in the distance, and his eyes followed her until she had rounded the curve by the dead aspens,--the eyes of lost hope. For it was upon life that he had planned and dreamed; that the woman of the lonely cabin would stand by her promise made in a time of stress and right at least some of the wrongs which had been his burden. But now-- "She--she didn't tell you anything before she went?" Ba'tiste shook his head. "She would not speak to me. Nothing would, she tell me. At first I go alone--then yesterday, when the snow, he pack, I take Golemar. Then she is unconscious. All day and night I stay beside the bed, but she do not open her eye. Then, with the morning, she sigh, and peuff! She is gone." "Without a word." It spelled blackness for Houston where there had been light. "I--I--suppose you've taken charge of everything." "_Oui_! But I have look at nothing--if that is what you mean." "No--I just had something here that you ought to have," Houston fumbled in his pockets. "She would want it around her neck, I feel sure, I when she is----." But the sudden glare in Ba'tiste's eyes stopped him as he brought forth the crucifix and its tangled chain. The giant's hands raised. His big lips twisted. A lunge and he had come forward, savage, almost beast-like. "You!" He bellowed. "Where you get that? Hear me, where you get that?" "From her. She--"