The gelding's nose was to the ground and, as a dog would have done, he picked his way, cautiously, yet surely, straight north where lay, though Gaspar did not know it, a settler's clearing and comfortable cabin. The rider's thoughts passed from his present surroundings back to the past and forward to the future; and when there sounded, almost at his feet, a cry of distress he did not hear it in his absorption. But Tempest did. At the second wail he stopped short, and it was this that roused Gaspar from his reverie. "Tired, old Tempest, boy? It won't do to rest here. Take a breath, if you like, and get on again. Keeping at it is salvation." "Mamma! I want--my--mamma!" "Whew! What's that? Hello!" The sound was not repeated, and yet Tempest would not advance. "Hello!" shouted Gaspar; and after a moment of strained listening, again he caught the echo of a child's sob. "My God! A baby--here! Lost in this fog!" He was off his horse and down upon his knees, reaching, feeling, creeping--calling gently, and finally touching the cold, drenched garment of the child he could not see. In its terror at this fresh danger the little one shrieked and rolled away; but the man lifted it tenderly, and soothed it with kind words till its shrieks ceased and it clung close to its rescuer. "There, there, poor baby! How came you here? Don't be afraid. I'll take you home. Tempest will find the way. Feel--the good horse knows. It was he that found you; we'll get on his back and ride straight to mamma, for whom you called." Climbing slowly back into his saddle, because of the little one he held so carefully, Gaspar laid its cold hand upon the gelding's neck, but it slid listlessly aside and he realized that he had come not a moment too soon. All night they wandered, the child lying on Gaspar's breast wrapped in his coat, while the mist penetrated his own clothing and seemed to creep into his very thoughts, numbing them to a sort of despair that no effort could cast off. The wail of the child lost in that dreariness had brought back, like a lightning's flash, the earliest memories of his life and revived his never-dying hatred of his parent's slayers. "An Indian's hand was in this work!" he mused. "Doubtless, the mother for whom it grieved has met the fate which befell my own. And Abel said that it was among such as these my Sun Maid had gone!" Then justice called to mind his knowledge of Wahneenah, of the Black Partridge, old Winnemeg, and others, and his mood softened somewhat; but still memory tormented him and the white fog seemed a background for ghastly scenes too awful for words. Above all and through all, one consciousness was keener and fiercer than the others: "My Kitty is among them at this moment! O, God, keep her!" It was the strongest cry of his yearning heart; yet underneath lay an impotent rage at his own powerlessness to help in this preservation.