Once more she knelt in the rustling leaves, sobbing her heart out. "Oh, mother!" she cried, "oh, mother, mother, mother!"

The words held the most passionate prayer she had ever prayed in her life. And presently she rose to her feet again, with dimmed eyes and trembling lips, but strong to do and to endure. She seemed almost to have grown a woman in that moment, and unconsciously she took the lead, though she was the younger of the two.

"Dick," she said steadily, "go and harness Murphy. We must take father to the Collinsons."

Dick stumbled off blindly to do her bidding. Murphy was the one lean ox who had done all their carting and ploughing; and before long the boy came back again, driving the slow brute in the clumsy, creaking ox-cart. Between them they managed to draw their father up two inclined boards until his inert body rested safely in the cart; and then fleet-footed Stephanie ran back to the cabin for all the coverings and pillows in their poor store. Before half-an-hour had passed, the clumsy conveyance was creaking down the rough old Indian trail which led by many windings to the Collinson homestead, bearing the unconscious Captain, while Dick and Stephanie walked beside, urging Murphy to his best pace. Their hearts were sick with dread; motherless they had been for two years—were they now to be fatherless also?

It had all been so terribly sudden they had scarcely time to think, but it was the best thing they could do. At the Collinson homestead their father would be certain to receive the tenderest care, and perhaps medical attendance if things turned out fortunately. But would they ever get him alive over those long, jolting miles? The same fear was in the eyes of each as they looked at one another.

They were never to reach their journey's end. Before long the Captain began slowly to regain consciousness, and his first question was a faintly-uttered "What's this? Where are you taking me?"

They told him, with white, anxious faces bending over the rough sides of the cart, while Murphy tried to reach a tempting bit of green grass under the trees. But the injured man shook his head. "It is no use, my dears," he said feebly, "another two miles would kill me at once. And I must die where she died, for I cannot recover. Stephanie"—it was curious how he turned from the elder child to his younger—"Stephanie, take me back! Promise to take me back!"

Who could have withstood the pitiful appeal in his eyes? With aching hearts they promised, and once more he relapsed into unconsciousness, muttering fragments of old orders which he had given as captain of the great merchantman Theseus, in the long ago days. They looked at each other in miserable helplessness.

Dick broke the wretched silence. "Stephanie," he said, "you must take him home again, and I must go on to the Collinsons—for if he will not be taken to help, help must be brought to him. I shall be able to take two or three short cuts, and they will ride or drive back with me, so it won't be so very long. But oh, my dear, I do hate to leave you!"

Stephanie shook her head. "We are thinking of him now," she said quietly, and without another word turned Murphy round. With a last hurried look, Dick plunged rapidly into the bushes at the side of the trail, and she could hear the rustling of his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Then began the weary journey home again.

They had only travelled a short distance from the little clearing, but to Stephanie it seemed hours before the log-cabin and the field of corn came into view. And having reached home, she had to face a new difficulty. She could not, unaided, lift her father from the cart. So she backed it into a sheltered place among the trees, and brought the rough chairs and barrels from the log-cabin to support the shafts. Then she unharnessed Murphy, and led him to his shed, moving as if she were in some terrible dream.

Returning to the cabin, which already looked deserted and strange, she ransacked every corner until she found a little of some coarse, crude spirit in an old bottle. Mixing it with water, she strove to force some into her father's mouth, but he did not seem able to swallow. So she began her long helpless vigil beside the cart, knowing that there was nothing she could do. If only Dick were there! The shadows grew long and longer, and still the Captain lay motionless in the cart beneath the great trees; and still Stephanie kept her patient watch beside him. Only once did her father speak in all those terrible hours. She had been bending over him adjusting his coverings, when she found him looking up at her with a brighter, more gentle look than she had seen upon his face for years. "I thought you were your mother, little girl," he said faintly, "your hands move as hers did."

"They are not as soft as hers, father," said Stephanie in a broken voice.

"No," answered the Captain, "they are not as soft, poor brave little hands. But their touch is as tender, my dear, their touch is as tender."

After that the silence fell again—a greater, deeper, more divine silence, though Stephanie did not know it. And still she sat beside the cart in the gathering shadows, waiting for the help that was to come.

CHAPTER III.

Friends Indeed.

Mr. Collinson pulled the red handkerchief from his grey head and broad weather-beaten face, and crossing the room, threw a handful of pine splinters on the fire. It was a fire such as one seldom or never sees nowadays. First came the great back log, some four feet long and twenty inches thick; then upon the "dogs" were laid sticks of the same length, but only about six inches in diameter; and lastly, upon these, a mighty pile of pieces of pine and various chips of wood. In those days, fire-building was an art. The flames leapt up, and caught the handful of pine chips into a blaze of heat and brightness, which showed every corner of the room. It was a large and cheerful room, with two windows which now were covered with red cotton blinds. The walls were of smooth match-boarding, and a few gay water-colour sketches and old portraits in little oval brass frames were tacked upon them. The furniture was rough and home-made, but comfortable; and in a corner, partly hidden with a red cotton curtain, three cot-bedsteads, covered with red quilts, were trying hard to pretend they were sofas.

It was a cheerful room; and most of the people in it were cheerful too. Mr. Collinson was cheerful certainly; and Mrs. Collinson, small and round, with cheeks as pink as roses, seemed made for tender words and smiling. Two tall lads of eighteen, twins, stood before the blazing fire, and their faces were as broad and merry as anyone could desire. Perhaps the only faces in the room that bore shadows in them were those of Dick and Stephanie.

Stephanie sat near one of the windows, patiently stitching at a shirt, which from its dimensions seemed intended for Mr. Collinson. She was dressed in black, and the gown was of very different material and cut from that she had last worn. There were dark shadows under her dark eyes, and her face was thin; but beyond these signs of a recent and terrible grief, she seemed brighter and better for the cheerful companionship of the Collinson homestead.

Dick was as patiently sitting before little Mrs. Collinson, holding the yarn that she was winding. He had discarded his wild Indian finery, and was dressed as were the two older boys on the rug before the hearth. He and Stephanie might have been another son and daughter of the house, as far as treatment went; but they had that shadow of sorrow in their eyes which the rest had not.

But now all faces, grave and gay, were turned to Mr. Collinson; for when the good man woke himself thus emphatically from his evening nap, and brightened up the blazing fire, it generally meant that he had something important to say. So no one was surprised when he cleared his throat and put himself into an