Perhaps it was his shout of "Joe, Joe, Joe!" perhaps the general hubbub, that awoke Nina, who, exhausted by the trials through which she had passed, had been charged to remain in bed.
Startled by the noise she woke in a panic, leaped out of bed and ran to the window. What she saw outside held her there paralyzed, believing that she had lost her senses.
Joe glancing up saw here there, her eyes wide and fixed, her face white as a snowdrop, her head framed in a nimbus of golden hair.
Never while life lasted did he forget the picture.
"Nina!" he shouted, joy, amazement, incredulity in his voice.
The girl meanwhile was staring at him as if he were a ghost.
"J—J—Jo-oe!" her lips framed the word rather than spoke it. Then again, as if she could not believe the evidence of her senses—"Joe!"
Ruth ran to her and caught her in her arms. "Yes, Nina, yes, darling, don't look so scared. It isn't his ghost, it's just himself, our own darling, blessed, precious Joesy home again, alive and well, and not dead at all!"
Joe broke from his mother's arms.
"Nina, Nina," he cried stretching his arms toward the window, "oh, Nina, how did you get here? How did you escape? Oh, I've worried and worried and worried about you! Oh, thank God, you got home! I thought that the Sioux or Red Snake had got you again!"