w
the brave man struggling up and down the giant waves, and now and again
losing sight of him in the trough of the sea, she put out one hand and
held the mother's with a grasp which vibrated in sympathy, whilst the
great tears welled over in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Pearl,
watching her keenly, said nothing, but taking her tiny cambric
handkerchief from her pocket silently wiped the tears away, and clung all
the tighter. It was her turn to protect now!

Pearl's own time for tears came when her mother began to tell this new
and sympathetic friend of how she became so much attached to her rescuer
that when she knew he would not be coming to the West with them, but
going off to the wildest region of the far North, her health became
impaired; and that it was only when Mr. Robinson promised to come back to
see her within three years that she was at all comforted. And how, ever
since, she had held the man in her heart and thought of him every day;
sleeping as well as waking, for he was a factor in her dreams!

Stephen was more than ever moved, for the child's constancy touched her
as well as her grief. She strained the little thing in her strong young
arms, as though the fervency of her grasp would bring belief and comfort;
as it did. She in her turn dried the others' eyes. Then Mrs. Stonehouse
went on with her story:

'We were at Banff, high up in the Rockies, when we read of the burning
and wrecking of the _Dominion_. It is, as you know, a Montreal boat of
the Allan Line; so that naturally there was a full telegraphic report in
all the Canadian papers. When we read of the brave man who swam ashore
with the line and who was unable to reach the port but swam out across
the bay, Pearl took it for granted that it must have been "The Man," as
she always called Mr. Robinson. When by the next paper we learned that
the man's name _was_ Robinson nothing would convince her that it was not
_her_ Mr. Robinson. My husband, I may tell you, had firmly come to the
same conclusion. He had ever since the rescue of our child always looked
for any news from Alaska, whither he knew Mr. Robinson had gone. He
learned that up away in the very far North a new goldfield had been
discovered by a man of the same name; and that a new town, Robinson City,
began to grow up in the wilderness, where the condition of life from the
cold was a new experience to even the most hardy gold miners. Then we
began to think that the young hero