scared-it's something in here that seems to get the shivers and sends a bitter taste to my mouth when I think of the awful thing that might happen to Dad." She pressed Susan Dines's hand hard against her heart.

"Don't I know it, child!" The old woman spoke almost fiercely.

"Some nights," Nan went on, "I've waked up trembling, with my face wet from crying in my sleep and wanted to call you, Aunty, to come and talk to me."

"Why didn't you, honey lamb?" Susan Dines released her hand from Nan's clasp, to draw the girl's head to her shoulder and kiss the tear-wet face.

After a minute, Nan sat upright, felt for a handkerchief, wiped away her tears and managed a tremulous smile.

"I'm not going to be frightened any more, Aunty; I'm just going to think about what I can do to help Dad and you and Uncle Billy and Mr. Kearns. A girl past sixteen-”

Julia Ellery was already at Mrs. Hardwick's when Nan and her aunt arrived, a chatty, plumpish, blueeyed blonde woman in the middle thirties. Under carefully darkened brows, her friendly eyes sparkled, and her smile revealed rows of even, white teeth. On her waved hair sat a new blue-straw toque, with iridescent black feathers draped across its crown.

Nan liked Mrs. Ellery at once, her cheerful manner,

the sympathetic pressure of her hand, her impulsive kiss and greeting.

"I'm so glad you're going to be with me on this long trip," she said, and, retaining Nan's hand, turned to explain to Susan Dines: "Mr. Kearns couldn't get berths, so we'll have to make the best of a chair car." Before taking her lonely way back to the farm, Nan's aunt had a minute alone with her.

"I'm real pleased with Miz Ellery," she said. "She'll be a comfort to you. . . . Some of us'll come into Big Grove every day, in case any word should come. Kearns says he'll telegraph when there's news, an' you write every day, Nancy, even if it's only a scratch of the pen. I wish I could stay to see you off on the train, but I've got to get back to your Uncle Billy."

She kissed the girl tenderly and Nan clung to her

a moment.

"An' now-oh, honey lamb, tell Ches that Sue's heart is just achin' for her 'buddy'!"

With some words of thanks to Mrs. Ellery and a good-by to May Hardwick, she climbed to the wagon seat and drove away into the sunset's afterglow.

Nan and Mrs. Ellery sat together in a chair car of the "Flyer," Kearns finding a vacant chair just in front of them, where he began methodically to sort and read documents in blue covers, then fold them carefully and slip them under wide rubber bands. A soft felt hat pulled low over brooding eyes and twitching, beak-like nose, his short neck lost between hunched shoulders,

he sat absorbed in his papers until the negro porter came through to lower the gas lights.

Tactfully, Mrs. Ellery settled to silence and Nan, tired after the long morning in the saddle and the excitement of the sudden journey, soon fell into fitful slumber. She was too young, too full of healthy energy, to brood long over her troubles. Only at times, roused by the noises when the train pulled into a station, she stirred, sighed, shivered forlornly under the oppression of strangeness and loneliness. "Dad, oh, my Daddy!" she whispered once, and Mrs. Ellery, warm-hearted and pitying, murmured "dear child" and drew the tired girl's head to her shoulder.

"I thought you were asleep," Nan said shyly, brushing a handkerchief across her eyes and returning the comforting pressure of soft white hands on her fingers.

"No, my dear," Julia Ellery answered. "But you've got a long day before you, and you must try to rest."

T

CHAPTER XIII

FACING TROUBLE CLOSE UP

HE train got to Fort Tyler two hours late, at ten in the morning. Explaining that he must

first arrange the meeting with her father, Kearns insisted that Nan should have a good breakfast; and Mrs. Ellery took her to Mrs. Honeywell's cool little Commercial Café on the south side of Court House Square.

"You two get tidied up and eat," the lawyer advised. "I'll be back in no time for Nan." He suggested to the excited girl: "You want to look nice and cheerful when you see your father, don't you?"

"Yes," Nan nodded. Her heart was pounding and her eyes misting, but, surprisingly, she found that she was wolfishly hungry. As they ate, Mrs. Ellery chatted with her and with Mrs. Honeywell, who hovered sympathetically about their table. Pale, and a little dark under the eyes Nan was, but she had not lost her courageous spirit, and Julia Ellery thought: "How pretty the child is! She'll grow up into a beauty." She wondered what the father was like.

Kearns brought Nan into the small white-washed room at the jail where Forest waited, then left them with a muttered apology.

"Dad, Dad," was all the girl could say at first, hug

ging him close and crying without restraint on his shoulder; and he, pressing her cheek to his, murmured old words of affection, patted her shoulder, stroked her hair. At last, putting her off to get a good look at her, he exulted:

"You are glad to see your Dad, Nancy!" Then: "But, say, you've growed a heap since I seen you!"

They settled down to talk, her father listening to Nan's messages, to all she had to tell of home affairs. He asked countless questions, responded to her solicitous queries with little comments on his life as a prisoner.

"I get awful tired of the sameness," he said, “but they treat me real well, an' the meals ain't bad. They've loaned me some books, too.

At noon, a deputy in high-heeled boots lounged in. "Your friends is waitin', Miss Forest," he drawled softly.

"I guess you'll have to go, Nancy," Forest rose reluctantly and looked at the deputy, "but I'll see you again soon. Run on an' get your dinner, while I see what Mr. Brennon here's got for me."

Going with Mrs. Ellery to her "doll house," as she called her cottage, Nan felt comforted. After all, things might be worse!

Not all the talks between Nan and her father, however, were so cheerful. By turns, he was despairing, hopeful, boastful. The trial was set for Thursday, and on Wednesday Nan found him sunk in a mood of black