“David!”

He sprang up.  From the shadow of a dwarf spruce half a dozen paces from him had stepped the figure of a man.  He stood with bared head, the light of the moon streaming down upon him, and out of David’s breast rose a strange cry, as if it were a spirit he saw, and not a man.

“David!”

“My God—­Father Roland!”

They sprang across the little space between them, and their hands clasped.  David could not speak.  Before he found his voice, the Missioner was saying: 

“I saw the fire, David, and I stole up quietly to see who it was.  We are camped down there not more than a quarter of a mile.  Come!  I want you to see....”

He stopped.  He was excited.  And to David his face seemed many years younger there in the moonlight, and he walked with the spring of youth as he caught his arm and started down the valley.  A strange force held David silent, an indefinable feeling that something tremendous and unexpected was impending.  He heard the other’s quick breath, caught the glow in his eyes, and his heart was thrilled.  They walked so swiftly that it seemed to him only a few moments when they came to a little clump of low trees, and into these Father Roland led David by the hand, treading lightly now.

In another moment they stood beside someone who was sleeping.  Father Roland pointed down, and spoke no word.

It was a woman.  The moonlight fell upon her, and shimmered in the thick masses of dark hair that streamed about her, concealing her face.  David choked.  It was his heart in his throat.  He bent down.  Gently he lifted the heavy tresses, and stared into the sleeping face that was under them—­the face of the woman he had met that night on the Transcontinental!

Over him he heard a gentle whisper.

“My wife, David!”

He staggered back, and clutched Father Roland by the shoulders, and his voice was almost sobbing in its excitement as he cried, whisperingly: 

“Then you—­you are Michael O’Doone—­the father of Marge—­and Tavish—­Tavish....”

His voice broke.  The Missioner’s face had gone white.  They went back into the moonlight again, so that they should not awaken the woman.

* * * * *

Out there, so close that they seemed to be in each other’s arms, the stories were told, David’s first—­briefly, swiftly; and when Michael O’Doone learned that his daughter was in David’s camp, he bowed his face in his hands and David heard him giving thanks to his God.  And then he, also, told what had happened—­briefly, too, for the minutes of this night were too precious to lose.  In his madness Tavish had believed that his punishment was near—­believed that the chance which had taken him so near to the home of the man whose life he had destroyed was his last great warning, and before killing himself he had written out fully his confession for Michael O’Doone, and had sworn to the innocence of the woman whom he had stolen away.