"Oh, they're kindly folk enough, but terribly poor," she returned, as Norton led her down the bank under the shade of a clump of cottonwood. "And such wretched, happy, dirty little babies! I wish I could do something for them." He watched her, fascinated by her fresh beauty, wondering anew how this pearl of womanhood came to be fixed in the squat cabin of Abel Grigg. For a space they sat in silence; she gazed out over the river, hands clasped in her lap, while Norton filled his pipe and smoked, feeling suddenly content with all things. It was coming out all right, he felt, despite the failure to trail Grigg down and trap the whole gang. Of the relation between Grigg and the girl beside him, he never bothered, being perfectly convinced in his own mind that she was another man's daughter. He remembered the promise he had given her, but the deeper memory of that verbal bill of sale had impressed him with a hatred and contempt for both Grigg and Duval, which nothing would eradicate from his mind. He recalled the vow he had taken upon that golden eagle, and perhaps the thought leaped to Kathleen's mind, for she turned with a sudden little laugh. "Oh, I forgot! Have you still got that gold eagle pin?" "Yes." Norton put his hand to his breast. "Why?" He could not understand the half-smile that lay in her eyes as she looked at him. Knowing that he was puzzled, she laughed again. "Haven't you looked at it since that day?" "No--but I will now." He reached inside his shirt and unfastened the pin. As the sunlight fell on it, he frowned slightly; the broken enamel on its face did not seem--suddenly he turned it over, and read the initials "H.E.M." "By thunder!" he exclaimed, looking up at the laughing girl. "I handed you the wrong pin, eh? It was a mistake, Kathleen----" She nodded. "Yes. I discovered it after you had gone, so when I came I brought this one of yours with me." Norton looked at the pin she held out, recognizing it for his own. Yet he made no move to take it. Much as it meant to him, being his only memorial from the father he could not remember, he only looked at it and admired the slim beauty of the palm on which it lay. Hers was not the hand of a backwoods woman, he thought. "Listen, Kitty," he said slowly. "Just as soon as I've cleared up this Blacknose affair here, I'm going to Cincinnati and find out who the owner of this pin of yours really was. A number of the Cincinnati are there or in the neighbourhood, and they will have records of the Order. Let me keep your eagle until then, and you keep mine as an earnest that I will return yours." He found her face suddenly grave. "I do not want to lose it," she said quietly. "It means a good deal to me, after what you have said----"