“Oh, poor thing! poor thing!” he exclaimed in a burst of sympathy, “you’re half dead. Here take some more of this,” and he pressed the cup into her hand, not knowing what else to do for her. She took it, and then, through the tears, he saw her cast a look of furtive alarm toward her husband. She was within his line of vision and tried to shift herself behind Moreau. With a sensation of angry disgust he understood that she feared this unkempt and haggard creature to whom she belonged. He moved so that he sheltered her and watched her try to drink again. But her tears blinded her and she handed the cup back with a shaking hand. “It’s been too much,” she gasped. “If I could only have died! My boy did. Out there on them awful plains where there ain’t a tree and it’s hot like a furnace. And they buried him there--Bessie and he.” “Bessie and he?” he repeated vaguely, his pity entirely preoccupying his mind for the moment. “Yes, Bessie,--the second wife. I’m the first.” “Oh,” he said, comprehending, “you’re from Utah?” “Not me,” she answered quickly, “I’m from Indiana. I’m no Mormon. He wasn’t neither till he married Bessie. He wanted her and he did it.” Here she was suddenly interrupted by a weak whining cry from the bundle that one arm still curved about. She bent her head and drew back the covering, and Moreau saw a strange wizened face and a tiny, claw-like hand feeling feebly about. He had never seen a very young infant before and it seemed to him a weirdly hideous thing. “Is it yours?” he said, amazed. “Yes,” she answered, “it was born in the desert three weeks ago.” Her tears were dry, and she bent over the feeble thing that squirmed weakly and made small, cat-like noises, with something in her attitude that changed her and made her still a woman who had a life above her miseries. “Wouldn’t you like to go into the cabin?” said the man, feeling suddenly abashed by his ignorance of all pertaining to this infinitesimal bit of life. “You might want to wash it or put it to sleep or give it something to eat. There’s a basin and soap and--er--some flour and bacon in there.” The woman responded to the invitation with a slight show of alacrity. She stumbled as she rose, and he took her arm and guided her. At the cabin door he left her and as he passed to the back where the rest of the party had gone, the baby’s feeble cry, weak, but insistent, followed him.