Then her senses seemed suddenly to wake into painful life again, and she stood up and looked about in dry-eyed desperation. That her father was seriously injured she knew, for the branch had struck him at the base of the head. But he appeared to be still living; and what were they to do for the best? A feeling of their utter loneliness swept over her, bringing back that other irremediable loss of two years ago. 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!"