For the first time in her life Teresa lost her presence of mind in an emergency. She could only sit staring at the helpless man, scarcely conscious of his condition, her mind filled with a sudden prophetic intuition of the significance of his last words. In the light of that new revelation she looked into his pale, haggard face for some resemblance to Low, but in vain. Yet her swift feminine instinct met the objection. “It's the mother's blood that would show,” she murmured, “not this man's.”  
Recovering herself, she began to chafe¹ his hands and temples, and moistened his lips with the spirit. When his respiration² returned with a faint color to his cheeks, she pressed his hands eagerly and leaned over him.
 
“Are you sure?” she asked.
 
“Of what?” he whispered faintly.
 
“That Low is really your son?”
 
“Who said so?” he asked, opening his round eyes upon her.
 
“You did yourself, a moment ago,” she said quickly. “Don't you remember?”
 
“Did I?”
 
“You did. Is it not so?”
 
He smiled faintly. “I reckon.”
 
She held her breath in expectation. But only the ludicrousness of the discovery seemed paramount³ to his weakened faculties⁴. “Isn't it just about the ridiculousest thing all round?” he said, with a feeble chuckle⁵. “First YOU nearly kill me before you know I am Low's father; then I'm just spoilin' to kill him before I know he's my son; then that god-forsaken fool Jack⁶ Brace⁷ mistakes you for Nellie and Nellie for you. Ain't it just the biggest thing for the boys to get hold of? But we must keep it dark until after I marry Nellie, don't you see? Then we'll have a good time all round, and I'll stand the drinks. Think of it, Teresha! You don' no me, I do' no you, nobody knowsh anybody elsh. I try kill Lo'. Lo' wants kill Nellie. No thath no ri—'” but the potent⁸ liquor, overtaking his exhausted⁹ senses, thickened, impeded¹⁰, and at last stopped his speech. His head slipped to her shoulder, and he became once more unconscious.
 
Teresa breathed again. In that brief moment she had abandoned herself to a wild inspiration of hope which she could scarcely define. Not that it was entirely¹¹ a wild inspiration; she tried to reason calmly. What if she revealed the truth to him? What if she told the wretched man before her that she had deceived him; that she had overheard his conversation with Brace; that she had stolen Brace's horse to bring Low warning; that, failing to find Low in his accustomed haunts, or at the campfire, she had left a note for him pinned to the herbarium, imploring¹² him to fly with his companion from the danger that was coming; and that, remaining on watch, she had seen them both—Brace and Dunn—approaching, and had prepared to meet them at the cabin? Would this miserable¹³ and maddened man understand her self-abnegation? Would he forgive Low and Nellie?—she did not ask for herself. Or would the revelation turn his brain, if it did not kill him outright¹⁴? She looked at the sunken orbits of his eyes and hectic¹⁵ on his cheek, and shuddered¹⁶.
 
Why was this added to the agony she already suffered? She had been willing to stand between them with her life, her liberty, and even—the hot blood dyed her cheek at the thought—with the added shame of being thought the cast-off mistress of that man's son. Yet all this she had taken upon herself in expiation¹⁷ of something—she knew not clearly what; no, for nothing—only for HIM. And yet this very situation offered her that gleam of hope which had thrilled her; a hope so wild in its improbability, so degrading in its possibility, that at first she knew not whether despair was not preferable to its shame. And yet was it unreasonable¹⁸? She was no longer passionate¹⁹; she would be calm and think it out fairly.
 
She would go to Low at once. She would find him somewhere—and even if with that girl, what mattered?—and she would tell him all. When he knew that the life and death of his father lay in the scale, would he let his brief, foolish passion for Nellie stand in the way? Even if he were not influenced by filial affection or mere²⁰ compassion²¹, would his pride let him stoop to a rivalry²² with the man who had deserted²³ his youth? Could he take Dunn's promised bride, who must have coquetted with him to have brought him to this miserable plight²⁴? Was this like the calm, proud young god she knew? Yet she had an uneasy instinct that calm, proud young gods and goddesses did things like this, and felt the weakness of her reasoning flush her own conscious cheek.
 
“Teresa!”
 
She started. Dunn was awake, and was gazing at her curiously²⁵.
 
“I was reckoning it was the only square thing for Low to stop this promiscuous²⁶ picnicking here and marry you out and out.”
 
“Marry me!” said Teresa in a voice that, with all her efforts, she could not make cynical²⁷.
 
“Yes,” he repeated, “after I've married Nellie; tote you down to San Angeles, and there take my name like a man, and give it to you. Nobody'll ask after TERESA, sure—you bet your life. And if they do, and he can't stop their jaw²⁸, just you call on the old man. It's mighty²⁹ queer, ain't it, Teresa, to think of your being my daughter-in-law?”
 
It seemed here as if he was about to lapse³⁰ again into unconsciousness over the purely³¹ ludicrous aspect of the subject, but he haply recovered his seriousness. “He'll have as much money from me as he wants to go into business with. What's his line of business, Teresa?” asked this prospective³² father-in-law, in a large, liberal way.
 
“He is a botanist³³!” said Teresa, with a sudden childish animation³⁴ that seemed to keep up the grim humor of the paternal³⁵ suggestion; “and oh, he is too poor to buy books! I sent for one or two for him myself, the other day—” she hesitated—“it was all the money I had, but it wasn't enough for him to go on with his studies.”
 
Dunn looked at her sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks, and became thoughtful. “Curson must have been a d—d fool,” he said finally.
 
Teresa remained silent. She was beginning to be impatient and uneasy, fearing some mischance that might delay her dreaded³⁶, yet longed-for meeting with Low. Yet she could not leave this sick and exhausted man, HIS FATHER, now bound to her by more than mere humanity.
 
“Couldn't you manage,” she said gently, “to lean on me a few steps further, until I could bring you to a cooler spot and nearer assistance?”
 
He nodded. She lifted him almost like a child to his feet. A spasm³⁷ of pain passed over his face. “How far is it?” he asked.
 
“Not more than ten minutes,” she replied.
 
“I can make a spurt³⁸ for that time,” he said coolly, and began to walk slowly but steadily³⁹ on. Only his face, which was white and set, and the convulsive grip of his hand on her arm betrayed the effort. At the end of ten minutes she stopped. They stood before the splintered, lightning-scarred shaft⁴⁰ in the opening of the woods, where Low had built her first camp-fire. She carefully picked up the herbarium, but her quick eye had already detected in the distance, before she had allowed Dunn to enter the opening with her, that her note was gone. Low had been the............