"All you have to do," the supervisor explained, "is to appear before the judge, deposit a certified check, and sign the paper which the law demands." "Let us go at once," she said. "My father is sleeping now and the housekeeper will sit with him. I can slip away for an hour." "The sooner the quicker," agreed Rawlins. While she was gone on a cautious inspection of the sick-room a messenger-boy came to the door with a telegram. "Gee! but the company is doing business to-day!" he remarked to Rawlins, with a grin. "Here's another fat one." Rawlins gently pushed him into the hall. "That'll do for you, son," he said. "Fat or thin, you deliver your goods and keep still." The message was indeed a "fat one," and came, Helen said, from a sister in Chicago, and expressed great anxiety to know exactly what conditions were. "Do you need me?" the writer demanded. "If you do, I will start at once. Let us hear from you. We are all very anxious." Though visibly affected by this appeal, Helen's reply was brief. "No need of you. I am well and returning East soon. Have all I need." This she handed in to the operator herself as she and Rawlins were on the way to Judge Brinkley's office; and then with the thought of possibly getting away in a day or two she asked of Rawlins: "When will Mr. Hanscom's trial come off?" "Not for several weeks, I fear, unless we can do something to have it put forward. You see, they've all conspired to make it a case for the County Court, but the judge may be able to throw it back into the Justice Court, where it really belongs. At the worst, Hans should only be fined, but, of course, we can't say a word. We can only wait till the hearing." A few hours ago she would have been fiercely impatient at this prospect of delay, but now, most strangely, she found herself accepting, without protest, a further stay in the town, for it came as a part of her pledged service in the aid of an unselfish young man, and she was definitely, distinctly moved at the thought of helping him. "By the way, Mr. Rawlins, I notice you call Mr. Hanscom Hans. Is that his Christian name?" "Oh no, that's only his nickname. He signs his reports L. J. Hanscom. I think his real name is Lawrence. I don't know why everybody calls him 'Hans'--probably because he is so friendly and helpful. Everybody likes him except that Shellfish Valley crowd, and they feel, I suppose, that I put him down here to keep tab on them, which is the fact. They're a nest of bad ones--a lot of hold-overs from the past--and would have frozen him out long ago if they could." Knowing the ranger's first name seemed to bring him still nearer, and she began to feel a little uneasy about the way in which he might take her share in his liberation. "Suppose he should misread it!"