The sky overhead was sown thick with stars, flung like a royal canopy above the earth. The shepherds keeping watch over their flocks would have needed no other light to guide them, and Hugh Tomlinson, stooping to the little fat tracks that spudded through the snow, had little need of the lantern that swung from his great hand. The tracks led straight across the country without swerving to left or right. They crossed the wood and came into the open.... He followed them fiercely, like a great dog, unheeding whither they might lead. Suddenly, with a muffled cry, he stopped.... Straight before him ran the creek and out from the bank stretched a frail band of ice. Beyond--the water swirled black and sluggish. He hurried to the brink and stood staring--not a sound to break the silence. He strained his eyes across the thin edge of ice. Surely it could not have borne the weight of a tiny child. He wheeled about and looked up to the stars. They twinkled in their places--remote and glad. There was no help in them. Slowly his eyes dropped.... He started--shading them, as if from a vision, peering forward. There in the window of the little house, gleamed a light. He strode forward blindly, his eyes fixed on it. As he drew near, he sank to his knees, creeping almost on all fours; but at the window he clutched the sill and raised himself.... Within the green-trimmed room with its glinting light and soft glow sat the man and the child--asleep before the fire. The child’s head rested against the man’s breast and his face drooped till his cheek touched the modeling curls. For a moment Hugh Tomlinson eyed the sweet scene--like some gaunt wolf at the window. Then he strode to the door and throwing it open entered without knocking. The man at the fire looked up with startled glance. He had been dreaming, and it might have been an apparition of his dream that loomed in, out of the night. The two men regarded each other. The gaunt one stepped forward a pace. “Gi’e her to me,” he said. “She belongs to me.” “And I thought she was mine,” said Simeon. A sad little smile played about his lips. He moved toward the man, holding out his hand. “Forgive me, Tomlinson,” he said. The Scotchman did not touch the outstretched hand. He looked down at it dourly. “Gi’e her to me,” he repeated. Then, as they stood confronting each other, the bells rang.... They sounded faint across the snowy waste, striking the hour. The last stroke died upon the air, and silence settled in the little room--with greenness and the scent of firs. “Peace on earth, good-will toward men,” said Simeon in a low voice. “Make it peace for me, Hugh Tomlinson.” “Gi’e her to me,” said Tomlinson again. The man made no reply, but the child reached up a sleepy hand and slipped it about his neck. “I love Cinnamon,” she said drowsily.