"Oh, Kit; I can't bear to leave you behind! It breaks my old heart all to flinders!" lamented Abel, laboriously climbing into the great wagon which Jim and Pete were now to draw back to their old home and wherein were already seated Mercy, with Kitty's children. "If it wasn't for these babies of yourn, I'd never stir stick nor stump out this afflicted town." "Well, dear Abel, the babies _are_, and must be cared for. I know that you and Mother Mercy will spoil them with kindness; but I hope we'll soon be all together again. Good-by, good-by." The Sun Maid's voice did not tremble nor the light in her brave face grow dim, though her heart was nearer breaking than Abel's; in that she realized far more keenly than he the peril in which she was voluntarily placing herself. "Well, Kitty, lamb, do take care. Take the herb tea constant and keep your feet dry." "That will be easy to do, if this heat remains," answered the other quietly, looking about her as she spoke upon the sun-parched ground and the hot, brazen sky. "And you must not worry, any of you. Gaspar says the tepees are as comfortable as the best log cabins, though so hastily put up. You will have plenty of air and the delicious shade of the trees; the blessed spring water, too; and if you don't keep well and be as happy as kittens, I--I'll be ashamed of you. I declare, Mercy dear, your face is all a-beam with the thought of the old clearing, and the bleaching ground, and all. So you needn't try to look grave, for, as soon as we can, Wahneenah and I will follow." Then she turned to speak to Gaspar, who sat on Tempest close at hand, his handsome face pale with anxiety and divided interests, but stern and resolute to do his duty as his young wife had shown it to him. And what these two had to say to one another is not for others to hear; for it was a parting unto death, it might be, and the hearts of the twain were as one flesh. Also, if Mercy's face was alight with the glow of her home returning, it was moved by the sight of the two women--Wahneenah and her daughter--who were taking their lives in their hands for the service of their fellow-men. Never had the Indian woman's comeliness shown to such advantage; and her bearing was of one who neither belittled nor overrated the dignity of the self-sacrifice she was making. She wore a white cotton gown, which draped rather than fitted her tall figure, and about her dark head was bound a white kerchief that seemed a crown. With an impulse foreign to her, Mercy held out her hand; because in ordinary she "hated an Indian on sight." "Well, Wahneeny, I'd like to shake hands for good-by. There hain't never been no love lost 'twixt you an' me, but I 'low I might have been more juster than I was. I think you're--you're as good as ary white women I ever see, savin' our Kit, of course; an'--an'--I--I wish you well."