Evening had deepened into night, when, all alone, weary and very sad, Ben Logan made his way back to the fort. Here, at the gate, being informed of the marvelous manner in which the quest had terminated, he hurried on to grandpap's house to see his little friend and learn what further particulars he might of the mysterious affair. His mother, hearing that he was coming, hastened to meet him at the door; hastened, because her son, being intended by nature for a man of huge proportions, was already provided with the full-grown foot to meet that end. Consequently, his fashion of traveling over the loose, board floors, we usually see in backwoods cabins, was of that horse-like kind peculiar to overgrown boys, and against which quiet old ladies are wont to protest as more in keeping with barns and bridges than with human dwellings. And now that she was a nurse, his mother must needs protest against the habit in question more earnestly than usual, representing the necessities of the case in a way so affectionate and anxious that the tender-hearted Ben felt himself growing tender-footed, even while yet he stood on the solid earth. It took her but a few minutes to tell him all she knew of Sprigg's story, and it was as much as Elster knew, or any one else, indeed, excepting Jervis Whitney himself. When he had heard it, the young hunter, big with wonder and pity, leaned his rifle against the wall beside the doorway, and, treading the floor as lightly as were he walking on thin ice, followed his mother into a back room, which had been assigned to the little sufferer. There, pale as the dead, and as senseless, he lay, and as motionless, saving the slightest breathing, which might encourage the hope that, in the contest between them, life still held the advantage over death. Every now and then a tremor, somewhat more perceptible than the breathing, would play for a moment over the lacerated limbs, like the flickering flame of an expiring lamp. Ben could remain no longer than just sufficed for one good look at his unfortunate little friend, as that was enough to call forth a blubbering outburst of pitiful feeling much too boisterous for a place like that, and quite as much to be protested against by the doctors and nurses as his horse-like tread. So he conveyed himself away with as little noise as a rumbling, puncheon floor would well allow a half-grown boy with full-grown feet. And gathering up his rifle as he passed out at the door, went crying home. Some people, especially the harder cases among the boys, may regard such an exhibition of feeling as more beseeming a faint-hearted girl than a bold-hearted young hunter. But you and I know too well what human nature ought to be than to think anything of the sort. We know that this tenderness of feeling--let them call it weakness if they will--was the best part of young Ben Logan's strength, and that, without it, the son of a white man's wife would have been no better than the son of a red man's squaw.