The Valley of the Silent Men

At seven Mercer came with his supper. A little gleam of disappointment shot into his pale eyes when he found the last cigar gone from the box. Kent saw the expression and tried to grin good-humoredly.

"I'm going to have Father Layonne bring me up another box in the morning, Mercer," he said. "That is, if I can get hold of him."

"You probably can," snapped Mercer. "He doesn't live far from barracks, and that's where you are going. I've got orders to have you ready to move in the morning."

Kent's blood seemed for an instant to flash into living flame. He drank a part of his cup of coffee and said then, with a shrug of his shoulders: "I'm glad of it, Mercer. I'm anxious to have the thing over. The sooner they get me down there, the quicker they will take action. And I'm not afraid, not a bit of it. I'm bound to win. There isn't a chance in a hundred that they can convict me." Then he added: "And I'm going to have a box of cigars sent up to you, Mercer. I'm grateful to you for the splendid treatment you have given me."

No sooner had Mercer gone with the supper things than Kent's knotted fist shook itself fiercely in the direction of the door.

"My God, how I'd like to have you out in the woods--alone--for just one hour!" he whispered.

Eight o'clock came, and nine. Two or three times he heard voices in the hall, probably Mercer talking with the guard. Once he thought he heard a rumble of thunder, and his heart throbbed joyously. Never had he welcomed a storm as he would have welcomed it tonight. But the skies remained clear. Not only that, but the stars as they began to appear seemed to him more brilliant than he had ever seen them before. And it was very still. The rattle of a scow-chain came up to him from the river as though it were only a hundred yards away. He knew that it was one of Mooie's dogs he heard howling over near the sawmill. The owls, flitting past his window, seemed to click their beaks more loudly than last night. A dozen times he fancied he could hear the rippling voice of the river that very soon was to carry him on toward freedom.

The river! Every dream and aspiration found its voice for him in that river now. Down it Marette Radisson had gone. And somewhere along it, or on the river beyond, or the third river still beyond that, he would find her. In the long, tense wait between the hours of nine and ten he brought the girl back into his room again. He recalled every gesture she had made, every word she had spoken. He felt the thrill of her hand on his forehead, her kiss, and in his brain her softly spoken words repeated themselves over and over again, "I think that if you lived very long I should love you." And as she had spoken those words SHE KNEW THAT HE WAS NOT GOING TO DIE!