"The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is springing where they ride--but, oh, so far--too far away!" "Do you know them?" asked Gabriel. "No." "Do they know us?" "No." "Why do they come, and how do they know where we are?" asked Gabriel. "Their leader has seen us." "Where?" "In a dream."[A] [Footnote A: I fear I must task the incredulous reader's further patience by calling attention to what may perhaps prove the most literal and thoroughly-attested fact of this otherwise fanciful chronicle. The condition and situation of the ill-famed "Donner Party"--then an unknown, unheralded cavalcade of emigrants--starving in an unfrequented pass of the Sierras, was first made known to Captain Yount of Napa, _in a dream_. The Spanish records of California show that the relief party which succoured the survivors was projected upon this _spiritual_ information.] Gabriel whistled and looked at the rag baby. He was willing to recognise something abnormal, and perhaps even prophetic, in this insane woman; but a coincident exaltation in a stranger who was not suffering from the illusions produced by starvation was beyond his credulity. Nevertheless, the instincts of good humour and hopefulness were stronger, and he presently asked-- "How will they come?" "Up through a beautiful valley and a broad shining river. Then they will cross a mountain until they come to another beautiful valley with steep sides, and a rushing river that runs so near us that I can almost hear it now. Don't you see it? It is just beyond the snow peak there; a green valley, with the rain falling upon it. Look! it is there." She pointed directly north, toward the region of inhospitable snow. "Could you get to it?" asked the practical Gabriel. "No." "Why not?" "I must wait here for my baby. She is coming for us. She will find me here." "When?" "To-morrow." It was the last time that she uttered that well-worn sentence; for it was only a little past midnight that her baby came to her--came to her with a sudden light, that might have been invisible to Gabriel, but that it was reflected in her own lack-lustre eyes--came to this poor half-witted creature with such distinctness that she half rose, stretched out her thin yearning arms, and received it--a corpse! Gabriel placed the effigy in her arms and folded them over it. Then he ran swiftly to the other hut. For some unexplained reason he did not get further than the door. What he saw there he has never told; but when he groped his fainting way back to his own hut again, his face was white and bloodless, and his eyes wild and staring. Only one impulse remained--to fly for ever from the cursed spot. He stopped only long enough to snatch up the sobbing and frightened Olly, and then, with a loud cry to God to help him--to help _them_--he dashed out, and was lost in the darkness. CHAPTER IV. NATURE SHOWS THEM THE WAY.