He waked before the sun was quite up the next morning. The pale light reflected from the eastern sky was creeping in at the windows when he opened his eyes. His mind was not clear, and at first he thought he was in his room at his old home. In a half-dreaming state he fancied Michael was at the door, telling him it was time to rise and catch a train. Next he thought he heard Ruth\'s voice calling to him, as she was wont to do at times before she was out of bed. Then the vague outlines of the old furniture took clearer shape and he sat up. In a flash his new life had reopened before him. He dressed hurriedly and went down-stairs. The front door was open, and the dewy lawn lay in the yellowing light. The peak of the nearest mountain pierced the fleecy clouds. He was turning around the house to go to the cotton-field when the blind of Mary\'s room was thrown open and she looked down and smiled.

"Good morning!" she cried. "I wonder if you are headed for that cotton-patch?"

He answered that he was, and she laughed.

"Not before you have your breakfast," she commanded. "That is against the rules. It will be ready soon. Wait for me. I\'m coming right down."

He went to the veranda and saw her descending. When she came out into the full light from the shadowy house he remarked the lines of care in her face, and they threw a damper on his spirits.

"How did you rest?" she asked.

"Very well," he returned, "but I am afraid that you did not."

She was silent, her head downcast, and he wondered over the impulse that had emboldened him to make such a personal comment. He was about to beg her pardon, when she raised her face and looked at him confidingly.

"Oh, I know I show it, Mr. Brown," she exclaimed, "but I can\'t help it. I\'ve been half crazy all night long. I slept only a few minutes at a time, and even in my sleep my fears clung to me. It is my brothers. I have worried over them before, but never like this. From what I heard yesterday the spree they are on is the worst they ever had. They were with their vilest associates, moonshiners and gamblers, over at Carlin, drinking harder than ever before."

Here Zilla came to the front door. Catching her mistress\'s eye, she cried out, excitedly: "Young miss, I see er hoss en\' buggy \'way down de road. It got two mens in it. Looks ter me like de boys. Dey is whippin\' de hoss powerful en\' ercomin\' fast."

Ascending the veranda steps, Mary looked down the main road toward Carlin. "Yes, it is my brothers," she said, frowning. "Why they are hurrying so I can\'t make out. The horse looks as if it is about to drop."

She said no more, but hastened to the front gate, where she stood, her tense hands on the latch, waiting for the vehicle to arrive. In a moment a panting, foaming bay horse was reined in at the gate and the two young men sprang down from a ramshackle buggy.

"Where is father?" Kenneth, the older, a tall, dark young man, asked, hurriedly.

"He is in the library, I think," his sister answered, "Kensy, what is the matter?"

"Oh, don\'t ask me!" he cried, impatiently, a wild look in his eyes. "Keep the horse there ready, Martin. But never mind. What\'s the use? It is all in. We\'ll have to leave the main road, anyway. We must skip for the mountains."

"Oh, brother, brother Kensy, what is it?" Mary cried, in sheer terror, as she clutched his arm.

Drawing it from her impatiently, even roughly, he cried out to Zilla: "Call father! Hurry! No, I\'ll find him."

"Oh, Martin, Martin, what is it?" and Mary turned to her younger brother, who was short, rather frail-looking, and had blue eyes and reddish hair.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, his glance following Kenneth into the house. "Don\'t ask me, sis. It is all right."

"But I know something has gone wrong!" Mary cried. "You and Kensy look it; you can\'t hide it. What is it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and then said, reluctantly: "Well, we got in a little scrape, that\'s all, and had to make a break to get away. The sheriff and a deputy are after us."

"After you! after you!" Mary gasped. "What have you done?"

Martin hesitated sullenly, his eyes on the grass.

"Tell yo\' sister de trufe, boy," Aunt Zilla suddenly broke in. "Be ershamed er yo\'se\'f, keepin\' \'er awake all night wid worry. Tell \'er what\'s de matter. Don\'t yer see she\'s half \'stracted over yo-all\'s doin\'s?"

"Oh, well," he responded, "it was a little shooting-scrape. Ken and Tobe Keith had a dispute in Gardener\'s pool-room about an hour ago. To............