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!"

Rube turned away with a chuckle. His practical little wife had been
astonished out of her wits. And the fact amused him immensely.

"It's a gal, Ma," said Seth. He too was smiling.

"Gracious, boy, guess I've got two eyes in my head!"

There was a long pause. Ma fingered the silken curls. Then she took one of
the cold hands in hers and stroked it softly.

"Where--where did you git her?" she asked at last.

"The Injuns. I shot Big Wolf yesterday. They're on the war-path."

"Ah." The bright-eyed woman looked up at this tall foster son of hers.

"War-path--you shot Big Wolf?" cried Rube, now roused to unwonted speech.
"Then we'd best git busy."

"It's all right, father," Seth reassured him. "The troops are on the
trail."

There was another considerable pause while all eyes were turned on the
child. At last Mrs. Sampson looked up.

"Who is she?" she asked.

Seth shook his head.

"Don't know. Maybe she's yours--an' mine."

"Don't you know wher' she come from?"

Again Seth shook his head.

"An'--an' what's her name?"

"Can't say--leastways her initials are M. R. You see I got her from--there
that's it. I got her from the Rosebuds. That's her name. Rosebud!"

CHAPTER V

A BIRTHDAY GIFT

Rosebud struggled through five long months of illness after her arrival at
White River Farm. It was only the untiring care of Rube and his wife, and
Seth, that pulled her through. The wound at the base of the skull had
affected her brain as well as body, and, until the last moment when she
finally awoke to consciousness, her case seemed utterly without hope.

But when at last her convalescence came it was marvelously rapid. It was
not until the good old housewife began to question he