now the little baby hasn't any mother
now; that she's left him and gone away?"

It seemed that the wind had not thought of it in this way. Occupied
only with Celia's departure, it had not considered the desolation it
had caused.

The long lithe fingers of the twigs ceased their tapping.

The wind sobbed fitfully a moment, little sad remorseful penitential
sobs, and died away softly across the prairie as a breath of May.

The stillness which ensued was so deep and restful that the eyes of
the child involuntarily closed. Cyclona pressed his little body close
to her, his head in the hollow of her arm. She rocked him back and
forth gently, singing:

"Sleep, baby, sleep," the words coming slowly, she was so tired.

"The big stars are the sheep,
The little ... stars ... are ... the lambs, I guess.
The moon ... is ... the ... shepher ... dess,
Sleep,
Baby ...
Sleep ..."

Her eyes closed. She nodded, still rocking gently back and forth.

After a long time Seth pushed open the door and looked in.

He set back the chair and came tip-toeing forward.

Cyclona raised her head and looked at him dreamily.

"Hush!" she whispered. "Be very quiet ... He has gone to sleep."

CHAPTER XI.

[Illustration]

"Brumniagen" is a name given to those wares which, having no use for
them at home, England ships to other countries. The term, however, is
not applied to one leading export of this sort: the scores of younger
sons of impoverished Noblemen who are packed off to the wilds of
Australia or to the Great Desert of America, to finish sowing their
wild oats in remote places, where such agriculture is not so overdone
as it is in England.

This economic movement resulted in a neighbor for Jonathan and Seth, a
young, blue-eyed, well-built Englishman, whose name was Hugh
Walsingham.

Jonathan walked out of his topsy turvy house one day to find the claim
just north of his pre-empted by the young man who was evidently a
tenderfoot, since his fair complexion had not yet become tanned by the
ceaseless winds.

Walsingham had staked out the claim, and was busily engaged in
excavating a cave in which he purposed to dwell.

Jonathan, never busy himself, lent a helping-hand, and he and
Walsingham at once became friends.

The outdoor life of the prairie pleased Walsingham, the abundance of
game rejoiced him. An excellent shot, his dugout was so