He saw her to the ambulance, then turned and replenished the fire and, filling his pipe, sat down to await Van Brunt’s return. An hour later the two men were asleep, wrapped in their blankets. There was no sound save the wind in the cottonwoods and the occasional, far, coyote cry, the nearer chirp or stir of a bird. During the earlier part of the night Van Brunt groaned, turned and turned again; roused, sighed, rose to feed the dying fire, sat a while beside it, and went back to his blankets. Then he slept heavily, and for a long time the camp was silent under the moon and stars. In the dark hour just before dawn the old man wakened suddenly and opened his eyes to see Hilda crouching beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “Uncle Hank!” she gasped, “I had such a dreadful dream, and when I waked, why, you see that ambulance is like a room; it’s got things like doors in it; and I was afraid the door-imp—” “All right, sister.” He lifted his head and looked about. She had left her aunt unawakened in the ambulance; she had skirted the form of her sleeping father—and come to him—to him, the friend of a day! “Here!” whispered the man who had said he was all alone in the world. Swiftly he unwound his blankets, wrapped the small nightgowned figure in them, and settled her cosily, reaching down to get his boots and draw them on. “But you aren’t going away, Uncle Hank?” quavered the child. “Not fur,” returned he humorously, as he went over and put more wood on the fire, then seated himself beside the giant cocoon from whose top protruded the small face with the big black eyes. These eyes, under the influence of a good grip on a man’s blue flannel sleeve, gradually lost their wildness. They filmed gently; the long lashes descended halfway, were swept up again with a startled gasp; and after two or three checkings and haltings, Hilda slept. The ranch boss replaced the blankets when from time to time her small, impatient arm flung them off. Lost in the immensity of night, the camp-fire died down, was replenished, died down again, and showed only winking embers as the east began to blush with a new day. CHAPTER II AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART Southwestward again, all that day—beautifully long for the little girl, wearily lengthened for Miss Valeria who alternately complained of the speed and urged the driver to hurry a little. Pearsall always gave her the same good-humored answer, as though it had been a child fretting at him: “Ponies got forty-odd miles to go, ma’am; have to just hold this same good road pace.”