Nature has her own kindnesses in store for us all, and when Rafael, having rigged his signal, lost his slight footing and tumbled, bumping his head, in falling, on a projecting stone, she promptly put him to sleep, so that he lay untroubled and unafraid on the rocky floor of his prison. He did not hear the excited barking of dogs, as a tall, grave shepherd, his sheepskin garments fragrant with thyme, met a rescue party of mingled muleteers and pilgrims searching the mountainside and guided them to the neighborhood of the cleft rock. “It was about here, sir,” the shepherd was saying to Uncle Manuel. “I was on that summit yonder and started down as soon as I saw that the young master was in danger. Hey, Melampo! Hey, Cubilon! Find the trail, Lobina!” “What nice names!” observed Pilarica, fearlessly patting one of the gaunt beasts. Uncle Manuel frowned. This was no place, no errand, for a girl. He had left her behind with Tia Marta. But that grumpy Bastiano, who could refuse the child nothing, had set her on Shags and--it served him right--had had that reluctant donkey to drag up the rough ascent. “Ay, my little lady,” the shepherd was saying to Pilarica. “All our dogs have these names, for such were the names of the sheepdogs of Bethlehem who went with their masters to see the Holy Child in the stable.” Pilarica smiled up into the wind-worn face of the speaker with happy confidence. She had noticed him from the road as he stood upon the summit, a majestic figure against the sky, and had thought in her childishness that he looked like God, keeping watch over the world. “And when the shepherds met the other wise men at the door,” she asked, “did the dogs bark at the camels?” “Has the girl no heart,” thought Uncle Manuel, “to be talking of such far-off things, when her brother may be--” But not even in his silent thought could Uncle Manuel finish the sentence. Lobina was sniffing at a fresh red stain upon a stone. Pilarica saw her uncle’s distress and wondered at it. She did not understand distress. Her soul was still pure sunshine that marvelled at the shadow. But she slipped, for love and pity, her slender hand into his hard grip. In a moment he pushed her, not ungently, from him. “Take the child back,” he ordered Bastiano. “You should not have brought her.” “She thought she could help,” growled the muleteer. “Help! Of what possible help could a girl be here? This is man’s work.” And Uncle Manuel’s eyes anxiously questioned Pedrillo, who had been on his knees examining the blood-stain. “Why! I can tell you where Rafael is,” cried Pilarica. “He’s in there.” And the small brown finger pointed to a tatter of red, that waved, on the end of what seemed to be an alder reed, from a rock near by. “That’s Rafael’s magic cap,--all that’s left of it. He always carries it in his blouse. He has tied it to his popgun. He’s hiding in the rock.”