On his way home that afternoon, and all the next day, the Indians were in his thoughts only so far as this waif he had picked up was concerned. For the most part he was thinking of the child herself, and those to whom he was taking her. He pictured the delight with which his childless foster-parents would receive her. The bright-faced little woman whom he affectionately called "Ma"; the massive old plainsman, Rube, with his gurgling chuckle, gruff voice and kindly heart. And his thoughts stirred in him an emotion he never would have admitted. He thought of the terrible lot he had saved this child from, for he knew only too well why she had been spared by the ruthless Big Wolf. All through that long journey his watchfulness never relaxed. He looked to the comfort of his patient although she was still unconscious. He protected her face from the sun, and kept cool cloths upon her forehead, and drove only at a pace which spared the inanimate body unnecessary jolting. And it was all done with an eye upon the Reservations and horizon; with a hearing always acute on the prairie, rendered doubly so now, and with a loaded rifle across his knees. It was dusk when he drove up to the farm. A certain relief came over him as he observed the peaceful cattle grazing adjacent to the corrals, the smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, and the great figure of Rube smoking reflectively in the kitchen doorway. He did not stop to unhitch the horses, just hooking them to the corral fence. Then he lifted the child from the buckboard and bore her to the house. Rube watched him curiously as he came with his burden. There was no greeting between these two. Both were usually silent men, but for different reasons. Conversation was a labor to Rube; a twinkling look of his deep-set eyes, and an expressive grunt generally contented him. Now he removed his pipe from his lips and stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the queer-looking bundle Seth was carrying. "Gee!" he muttered. And made way for his foster son. Any questions that might have occurred to him were banished from his slow-moving thoughts. Seth laid his charge upon the kitchen table, and Rube looked at the deathlike face, so icy, yet so beautiful. A great broad smile, not untouched with awe, spread over his bucolic features. "Where's Ma?" asked Seth. Rube indicated the ceiling with the stem of his pipe. "Ma," cried Seth, through the doorway, up the narrow stairs which led to the rooms above. "Come right down. Guess I've kind o' got a present for you." "That you, Seth?" called out a cheery voice from above. "Guess so." A moment later a little woman, with gray hair and a face that might have belonged to a woman of thirty, bustled into the room. "Ah, Seth," she cried affectionately, "you jest set to it to spoil your old mother." Then her eyes fell on the figure on the kitchen table. "La sakes, boy, what's--what's this?" Then as she bent over the unconscious child. "Oh, the pore--pore little beauty!"