The man’s head fell upon his breast. It did not occur to him to ask further questions, to wonder how the woman could have seen so much, bound as she was, and through a closed door. In the silence that followed, the baby awoke and cried. “God be praised!” gasped Granny. “He is alive then, alive! I have not dared to ask, or to look. So still he was---” “Like his mother,” said Ezra. He went to the cradle and stood gazing, his face a-quiver. Suddenly he stooped and took something out of the baby’s clenched fist; a long, gray feather. “What is this?” he asked, dully. Granny started. The Indian, then had left his sign, his warning! But she managed to answer, carelessly: “Oh, that? Why, he must have pulled it out of his mother’s feather duster, strong little man that he is! Come, Ezra, make up the fire, son. ’Tis time for the child’s nursing bottle.” For Mistress Estill, builder of empire, had little energy left to waste on grief. [Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 1923 issue of McClure’s Magazine.]