from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her
heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small
brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you
_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You
_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back the
blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form
until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the
living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly
mouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect.

"Catharine! what does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried
hoarsely.

"_Your child_--" she half questioned, half affirmed.

"Mine? Mine?" he called, without human understanding in his voice.
"Oh, Catharine! Where did you get her?"

"The shores of Kootenay Lake," she answered.

"Was--was--she _alone_?" he cried.

The woman looked away, slowly shaking her head, and her voice was
very gentle as she replied: "No, she alive a little, but _the
other_, whose arms 'round her, she not alive; my people, the
Kootenay Indians, and I--we--we bury that other."

For a moment there was a speaking silence, the young Wingate, with
the blessed realization that half his world had been saved for him,
flung himself on his knees, and, with his arms locked about the