she looked from the calm face to the steady fingers, she had no doubt
as to the truth of what had been told.

"Neither bullet wound, cut, bruise, nor broken bone," said Mrs. Zane.
"It's fear, starvation, and the terrible shock."

She rubbed Mabel's hands while gazing at her pale face. Then she
forced more brandy between the tightly-closed lips. She was rewarded
by ever so faint a color tinging the wan cheeks, to be followed by a
fluttering of the eyelids. Then the eyes opened wide. They were large,
soft, dark and humid with agony.

Helen could not bear their gaze. She saw the shadow of death, and of
worse than death. She looked away, while in her heart rose a storm of
passionate fury at the brutes who had made of this tender girl
a wreck.

The room was full of women now, sober-faced matrons and grave-eyed
girls, yet all wore the same expression, not alone of anger, nor fear,
nor pity, but of all combined.

Helen instinctively felt that this was one of the trials of border
endurance, and she knew from the sterner faces of the maturer women
that such a trial was familiar. Despite all she had been told, the
shock and pain were too great, and she went out of the room sobbing.

She almost fell over the broad back of Jonathan Zane who was sitting
on the steps. Near him stood Colonel Zane talking with a tall man clad
in faded buckskin.