This time he came up back of the prison. The guard was pacing back and forth in his beaten path, so thickly muffled about the ears that he did not hear Philip's cautious footsteps behind him. When he turned he found the muzzle of a revolver within arm's length of his face.
“Hands up!” commanded Philip.
The astonished man obeyed without a word.
“If you make a move or the slightest sound I'll kill you!” continued Philip threateningly. “Drop your hands behind you—there, like that!”
With the quickness and skill which he had acquired under Sergeant Moody he secured the guard's wrists with one of the coffin box straps, and gagged him with the same cloth that had been used upon himself. He had observed that his prisoner carried the key to the padlocked cabin in one of his coat pockets, and after possessing himself of this he made him seat himself in the deep shadow, strapped his ankles, and then unlocked the prison door.
There was a light inside, and from beyond this the white faces of the man and the woman stared at him as he entered. The man was leaning back in his cot, and Philip knew that the wife had risen suddenly, for one arm was still encircling his shoulders, and a hand was resting on his cheek as if she had been stroking it caressingly when he interrupted them. Her beautiful, startled eyes gazed at him half defiantly now.
He advanced into the light, took off his hat, and smiled.
With a cry Thorpe's wife sprang to her feet.
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” warned Philip, raising a hand and pointing to the door behind them.
Thorpe had risen. Without a word Philip advanced and held out his hand. Only half understanding, the prisoner reached forth his own. As, for an instant, the two men stood in this position, one smiling, the other transfixed with wonder, there came a stifled, sobbing cry from behind. Philip turned. The woman stood in the lamp glow, her arms reaching out to him—to both—and never, not even at Lac Bain, had he seen a woman more beautiful than Thorpe's wife at that moment.