"You ain't needed _here_," she said coldly. "If you want to do anything, find a man and send him for the Doctor--quick. If she dies you'll be her murderer." Mrs. Harkey was subdued by the bitterness of accusation in Sarah's face as well as by Emma's condition. She hurried down the Coolly and sent a boy wildly galloping toward the town. Then she went home and sat down by her own hearthstone feeling deeply injured. When the Doctor came he found a poor little boy baby crying in Sarah's arms. It was Emma's seventh child, but the ever sufficing mother-love looked from her eyes undimmed, limitless as the air. "Will it live, Doctor? It's so little," she said, with a sigh. "Oh, yes, I suppose so!" said the Doctor, as if its living were not entirely a blessing to itself or others. "Yes, I've seen lots of lusty children begin life like that. But," he said to Sarah at the door, "she needs better care than the babe!" "She'll git it," said Sarah, with deep solemnity, "if I have to move over here--and live." A FAIR EXILE The train was ambling across the hot, russet plain. The wind, strong and warm and dry, sweeping up from the south, carried with it the subtle odor of September grass and gathered harvests. Out of the unfenced roads the dust arose in long lines, like smoke from some hidden burning which the riven earth revealed. The fields were tenanted with thrashing crews, the men diminished by distance to pygmies, the long belt of the engine flapping and shining like a ribbon in the flaming sunlight. The freight-cars on the accommodation train jostled and rocked about and heaved up laterally till they resembled a long line of awkward, frightened, galloping buffaloes. The one coach was scantily filled with passengers, mainly poorly clothed farmers and their families. A young man seated well back in the coach was looking dreamily out of the window, and the conductor, a keen-eyed young fellow, after passing him several times, said, in a friendly way: "Going up to Boomtown, I imagine." "Yes--if we ever get there." "Oh, we'll get there. We won't have much more switching. We've only got an empty car or two to throw in at the junction." "Well, I'm glad of that. I'm a little impatient, because I've got a case coming up in court, and I'm not exactly fixed for it." "Your name is Allen, I believe." "Yes; J. H. Allen, of Sioux City." "I thought so. I've heard you speak." The young lawyer was a tall, slender, dark-eyed man, rather sombre in appearance. He did not respond to the invitation in the conductor's voice. "When do you reach the junction?" "Next stop. We're only a few minutes late. Expect to meet friends there?" "No; thought I'd get a lunch, that's all."