"I was only getting at my purse and my revolver," he said, showing them.
"I've got to get some stores at the Ferry by daylight."

Mornie sighed. "I'm giving you great trouble, Rand, I know; but it won't
be for long."

He muttered something, took her hand again, and bade her "good-night."
When he reached the door, he looked back. The light was shining full
upon her face as she lay there, with her babe on her breast, bravely
"looking ahead."


IV.


THE CLOUDS PASS.


It was early morning at the Ferry. The "up coach" had passed, with
lights unextinguished, and the "outsides" still asleep. The ferryman had
gone up to the Ferry Mansion House, swinging his lantern, and had found
the sleepy-looking "all night" bar-keeper on the point of withdrawing
for the day on a mattress under the bar. An Indian half-breed, porter
of the Mansion House, was washing out the stains of recent nocturnal
dissipation from the bar-room and veranda; a few birds were twittering
on the cotton-woods beside the river; a bolder few had alighted upon
the veranda, and were trying to reconcile the existence of so much
lemon-peel and cigar-stumps with their ideas of a beneficent Creator.
A faint earthly freshness and perfume rose along the river banks. Deep
shadow still lay upon the opposite shore; but in the distance, four