With the very word upon his lips, he threw himself, face downwards,
on the ground beneath it, and, with his fingers clutched in the
soil, lay there for some moments, silent and still. In this
attitude, albeit a skeptic and unorthodox man, he prayed. I cannot
say--indeed I DARE not say--that his prayer was heard, or that God
visited him thus. Let us rather hope that all there was of God in
him, in this crucial moment of agony and shame, strove outward and
upward. Howbeit, when the moon rose he rose too, perhaps a trifle
less steady than the planet, and began to descend the hill with
feverish haste, yet with this marked difference between his present
haste and his former recklessness, that it seemed to have a well-
defined purpose. When he reached the road again, he struck into a
well-worn trail, where, in the distance, a light faintly twinkled.
Following this beacon, he kept on, and at last flung himself
heavily against the door of the little cabin from whose window the
light had shone. As he did so, it opened upon the figure of a
square, thickset man, who, in the impetuosity of Catron's onset,
received him, literally, in his arms.

"Captain Dick," said Roger Catron, hoarsely, "Captain Dick, save
me! For God's sake, save me!"

Captain Dick, without a word, placed a large, protecting hand upon
Catron's shoulder, allowed it to slip to his waist, and then drew
his visitor quietly, but firmly, within the cabin. Yet, in the
very movement, he had managed to gently and unobtrusively possess
himself of Catron's pistol.

"Save ye! From which?" asked Captain Dick, as quietly and
unobtrusively dropping the Derringer in a flour sack.