“Oh—­yes—­Mother Jane, let us hurry!” cried Fay.  “I’m so full—­I can’t talk—­my heart hurts so!”

Jane Withersteen’s face shone with an exceedingly radiant light, and a glory blended with a terrible fear in her eyes.

“Fay! my little Fay!”

Lassiter had stood there with his mild, clear blue eyes upon Shefford.

“I shore am glad to see you—­all,” he drawled, and extended his hand as if the meeting were casual.  “What’d you say your name was?”

Shefford repeated it as he met the proffered hand.

“How’s Bern an’ Bess?” Lassiter inquired.

“They were well, prosperous, happy when last I saw them. . . .  They had a baby.”

“Now ain’t thet fine? . . .  Jane, did you hear?  Bess has a baby.  An’, Jane, didn’t I always say Bern would come back to get us out?  Shore it’s just the same.”

How cool, easy, slow, and mild this Lassiter seemed!  Had the man grown old, Shefford wondered?  The past to him manifestly was only yesterday, and the danger of the present was as nothing.  Looking in Lassiter’s face, Shefford was baffled.  If he had not remembered the greatness of this old gun-man he might have believed that the lonely years in the valley had unbalanced his mind.  In an hour like this coolness seemed inexplicable—­assuredly would have been impossible in an ordinary man.  Yet what hid behind that drawling coolness?  What was the meaning of those long, sloping, shadowy lines of the face?  What spirit lay in the deep, mild, clear eyes?  Shefford experienced a sudden check to what had been his first growing impression of a drifting, broken old man.

“Lassiter, pack what little you can carry—­mustn’t be much—­and we’ll get out of here,” said Shefford.

“I shore will.  Reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to need a pack-train.  We saved the clothes we wore in here.  Jane never thought it no use.  But I figgered we might need them some day.  They won’t be stylish, but I reckon they’ll do better ‘n these skins.  An’ there’s an old coat thet was Venters’s.”

The mild, dreamy look became intensified in Lassiter’s eyes.

“Did Venters have any hosses when you knowed him?” he asked.

“He had a farm full of horses,” replied Shefford, with a smile.  “And there were two blacks—­the grandest horses I ever saw.  Black Star and Night!  You remember, Lassiter?”

“Shore.  I was wonderin’ if he got the blacks out.  They must be growin’ old by now. . . .  Grand hosses, they was.  But Jane had another hoss, a big devil of a sorrel.  His name was Wrangle.  Did Venters ever tell you about him—­an’ thet race with Jerry Card?”

“A hundred times!” replied Shefford.

“Wrangle run the blacks off their legs.  But Jane never would believe thet.  An’ I couldn’t change her all these years. . . .  Reckon mebbe we’ll get to see them blacks?”

“Indeed, I hope—­I believe you will,” replied Shefford, feelingly.