"We're going home," he kept telling her over and over again. "We're going home-- down to mama-- mama-- mama!" He emphasized that; and each time Isobel's pretty mouth formed the word mama after him his heart leaped exultantly. By the end of that day it had become the sweetest word in the world to him. He tried mother, but his little comrade looked at him blankly, and he did not like it himself. "Mama, mama, mama," he said a hundred times that night beside their campfire, and before he tucked her away in her warm blankets he said something to her about "Now I lay me down to sleep." Isobel was too tired and sleepy to comprehend much of that. Even after she was deep in slumber and Billy sat alone smoking his pipe he whispered that sweetest word in the world to himself, and took out the tress of shining hair and gazed at it joyously in the glow of the fire. By the end of the next day little Isobel could say almost the whole of the prayer his own mother had taught him years and years and years ago, so far back that his vision of her was not that of a woman, but of an elusive and wonderful angel; and the fourth day at noon she lisped the whole of it without a word of assistance from him. On the morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and little Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused her, but urged the dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his vigilant quest for a sign of smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his heart there began to burn a suspense that was almost suffocating. In these last hours before he was to see Isobel there came the inevitable reaction within him. Gloom oppressed him where a little while before joyous anticipation had given him hope. The one terrible thought drove out all others now-- he was bringing her news of death, her husband's death. And to Isobel he knew that Deane had meant all that the world held of joy or hope-- Deane and the baby. It was like a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge of a small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in his arms and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after knocking upon it with his fist he thrust it open and entered.