Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and dress the only shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's hair was brushed back from his brow, he looked older, but still very small to go so far alone. Gardiner was travelling, travelling--climbing steep mountains, white with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, fast, fast--it was the only sound in the room. Bella had not left his side for hours, her cheek pressed the pillow by his restless head. Her tears had fallen and dried, fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried to say. His faltering words, his halting English, were familiar to the sister and she interpreted to the others, to whom Gardiner, too small to reach them, had never been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure had asked-- "What does he say, Bella? What does he want?" "He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he says it's cold, he says he wants Cousin Antony." Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must gird his little loins for the journey, his mind had gone to the big cousin who had so triumphantly carried him over the imaginary steeps. From the door, where he had been standing on the edge of the group, a tall figure in a red flannel shirt came forward, bent down, and before any one knew that he had come, or who he was, he was speaking to the sick child. "Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony come back." Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its restless turning. He looked up into the beloved face, whose smile shone on him and lit his dark journey. Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, he tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella whispered-- "He wants Cousin Antony to carry him." Without removing his look of tender brightness from the traveller's face, Fairfax murmured-- "I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline." And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little Gardiner, he was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his eyes upon Antony's and with a radiant look gave up the painful climbing to the rescuer. CHAPTER VIII