he Angel could
find his room while she waited.

The Bird Woman finished her lunch, and lay back, almost too tired to
speak.

"Were you for getting Little Chicken's picture?" Freckles asked.

"Finely!" she answered. "He posed splendidly. But I couldn't do anything
with his mother. She will require coaxing."

"The Lord be praised!" muttered Freckles under his breath.

The Bird Woman began to feel better.

"Why do you call the baby vulture 'Little Chicken'?" she asked, leaning
toward Freckles in an interested manner.

"'Twas Duncan began it," said Freckles. "You see, through the fierce
cold of winter the birds of the swamp were almost starving. It is
mighty lonely here, and they were all the company I was having. I got to
carrying scraps and grain down to them. Duncan was that ginerous he was
giving me of his wheat and corn from his chickens' feed, and he called
the birds me swamp chickens. Then when these big black fellows came,
Mr. McLean said they were our nearest kind to some in the old world
that they called 'Pharaoh's Chickens,' and he called mine 'Freckles'
Chickens.'"

"Good enough!" cried the Bird Woman, her splotched purple face lighting
with interest. "You must shoot something for them occasionally, and I'll
bring more food when I come. If you will help me keep them until I
get my series, I'll give you a copy of each study I make, mounted in a
book."

Freckles drew a deep breath.

"I'll be doing me very best," he promised, and from the deeps he meant
it.

"I wonder if that other egg is going to hatch?" mused the Bird Woman. "I
am afraid not. It should have pipped today. Isn't it a beauty! I never
before saw either an egg or the young. They are rare this far north."

"So Mr. McLean said," answered Freckles.

Before they drove away, the Bird Woman thanked him for his kindness to
the Angel and to her. She gave him her hand at parting, and Freckles
joyfully realized that this was going to be another person for him to
love. He could not remember, after they had driven away, that they even
had noticed his missing hand, and for the first time in his life he had
forgotten it.

When the Bird Woman and the Angel were on the home road, she told of
the little corner of paradise into which she had strayed and of her new
name. The Bird Woman looked at the girl and guessed its appropriateness.

"Did you know Mr. McLean had a son?" asked the Angel. "Isn't the little
accent he has, and the way he twists a sen