the window, peering through the slit between the drawn curtains which
sheltered him from being observed at his spying. When he called out
softly, the sound brought Gregg, with one long leap out of the chair
where he was sleeping, to the window. There could be no shadow of a
doubt about it. There stood Caroline Smith in the door of the house!

She closed the door behind her and, walking to the top of the steps,
paused there and looked up and down the street.

Bill Gregg groaned, snatched his hat and plunged through the door, and
Ronicky heard the brief thunder of his feet down the first flight of
stairs, then the heavy thumps, as he raced around the landing. He was
able to trace him down all the three flights of steps to the bottom.

And so swift was that descent that, when the girl, idling down the
steps across the street, came onto the sidewalk, Bill Gregg rushed out
from the other side and ran toward her.

They made a strange picture as they came to a halt at the same
instant, the girl shrinking back in apparent fear of the man, and Bill
Gregg stopping by that same show of fear, as though by a blow in the
face. There was such a contrast between the two figures that Ronicky
Doone might have laughed, had he not been shaking his head with
sympathy for Bill Gregg.

For never had the miner seemed so clumsily big and gaunt, never had
his clothes seemed so unpressed and shapeless, while his soft gray
hat, to which he still clung religiously, appeared hopelessly out of
place in contrast with the slim prettiness of the girl. She wore a
black straw hat, turned back from her face, with a single big red