It was bitter cold. The icy wind howling through the forest caught up the snow and whirled it in great eddies against the trees. Reuben Mendoza, staggering through the blinding snowflakes, hugged his little son Benjamin closer to his heart, and prayed desperately that the storm might cease or that he might soon come to a place of refuge. His own limbs were aching with fatigue and cold. He had eaten nothing since early morning and was faint with hunger. Wearied and heartsick, he would have been glad to lie down upon the ground, to sink into sleep, perhaps a painless death, with the snow drifting above him; but he knew that he must struggle on for the sake of the child he was warming in his bosom. Suddenly Benjamin, half asleep and numb with the cold, stirred a little and complained drowsily that he was hungry. His father paused for a moment and pressed his lean, bearded face against the child's rosy cheeks. "Be patient, little one," he comforted him, "for soon we shall find a lodging for the night. Surely, no one would turn even a Jew away in a storm like this." Again he plodded on, footsore and discouraged. The wind lashed him like a whip, and, when he raised his head, the snow cut across his forehead like stripes of fire. His lips moving almost mechanically in prayer, Reuben faltered through the storm, until at last utterly exhausted he stumbled to the ground. He tried to gain his feet again, for he thought he saw a light glimmering through the trees; but he was too tired to go farther. Why should he try to reach that light, he asked himself, as he dreamily stretched his tired limbs in the snow. But he felt little Benjamin moving beneath his cloak, and with one last effort he crawled through the drifts, clinging to the trees as he moved. A few moments later he found himself before a little shack. A single tallow candle shone through the window and cast a path of light before his weary feet. Reuben lurched forward against the door; it opened beneath his weight and he fell within the hut. He had a dim vision of two men bending over him; some one was taking little Benjamin from his arms; then the warm darkness wrapped him about like a cloak, and he knew nothing more. * * * * * When Reuben opened his eyes, he found that he was resting upon a couch of skins in one corner of the hut. It was a poor place; the walls were bare, and through their chinks snows drifted upon the frozen earthen floor. Beside the pallet there was no furniture in the room save a roughly hewn table and several chairs. Near the table sat two men, the one dressed in rich garments, a sword at his side; the other clothed in dull gray, with a broad white collar and a plain beaver hat. This man held little Benjamin on his knee and stroked his dark curls as the child drank greedily from the steaming cup which the kind-eyed stranger held to his lips.