When he had finished with the arranging of his affairs Gaspard called his Indian wife and her children to him. At once the others moved into another room. No one witnessed that farewell, not even Paul. For an hour the woman sat beside the man who was to her life as the sun to the flowers. Almost without speech, without tears or moan or lament, she sat, now with her head pressed down upon his hand, again with his hand pressed hard against her breast, watchful not to weary him or exhaust his failing strength with her grief. Beside him on the bed sat the little blind child, her inquiring little fingers wandering over his face as his voice changed with his pain. Beside his mother sat Peter, silent, stoical, after the manner of his mother’s race. Before he sent them away for the last time Gaspard called Paul to him. “Paul, boy, you are free to take your way as far as these are concerned. Their way may not be yours. I lay no obligation upon you. This woman is my lawful wife. She is wise and good. But you will do justly by them. This little one,” touching the blind girl beside him, “I had hoped might have had her sight restored. Now—” for the first time since his wounding Gaspard showed signs of breaking—“I don’t know. Life in the wilds would be hard for her.” “Daddy! Do you think I would leave her?” cried Paul. “Thank you, Paul! Thank God for you, Paul!” Then the Indian woman at a sign took the children away, leaving Paul close to his bedside. As the evening fell Gaspard grew rapidly weaker, the doctor relieving as best he could his pain and distress throughout the dreary hours of the night. Then at the breaking of the day his spirit fared forth to meet the dawn. * * * * * All through the summer the valley looked on with amazed approval and sympathy at Paul as with a man’s wisdom and courage he ran the Pine Croft ranch. Looked on, and more. More than once the neighbours gathered in an old-fashioned bee and helped the boy with the crops, the fencing, the branding of stock and with other ranch operations before which Paul, with his lack of experience and labour, would have been quite helpless. Under the burden of responsibility and of incessant work the boy developed a gravity of demeanour and a strength of purpose far beyond his years. With all childish games and sports he had done. Sleeman, who had disappeared from the valley upon the day of the tragedy, he never saw, but never forgot. Asa he ignored completely and avoided, but Adelina he frequently met in his lonely rides round the range. Her he found it impossible to ignore. She would not permit him to do so, and indeed, after the first shock which the sight of her gave him, Paul came to tolerate, then to enjoy, her company on those lonely rides of his. She was a good comrade, a capable assistant in emergencies and with an amazing endowment of tact and delicacy of feeling.