st of his bawling, and banteringly kicked out one soft foot
in a snug, red sock, faking Tank full in the chest; then he stiffened,
swayed backward and screamed again as if in agonies of grief.

"Sufferin' Moses!" grinned the drunkard. "I wouldn't take nuthin' fur
ye! Ye air a find, an' no mistake!" The word suggested illusion. "Ye
ain't no snake, now--nary toad--nary green rabbit--no sort'n jim-jam?"
he stipulated apprehensively.

The baby babbled gleefully, and, as if attesting its reality, delivered
half a dozen strong kicks with those active plump feet, encased in the
smart red socks.

It suddenly occurred to the drunkard that here was a duty owing--to seek
out the child's parents. Even to his befuddled brain that fact was plain
enough. The little creature had been lost evidently from some family of
travelers who would presently retrace their way seeking him.

When Bruce Gilhooley had sprung from the tailboard of the wagon in
that moment of tumultuous panic he had not noticed the bundle of straw
dislodged. Falling with it softly into the deep snowdrift the child had
continued to slumber quietly till awakened by the cold to silence and
loneliness, and then this strange rencontre.

With a half-discriminated idea of overtaking the supposed travelers,
Tank Dysart briskly forded the river, and, pressing his horse to a
canter, made off in the opposite direction.

Gayly they fared along for a time, Tank frequently refreshing himself
from a "tickler," facetiously so-called, which he carried in his pocket.
Occasionally he generously offered the baby the stopper to suck, and as
the child smacked his lips with evident relish Tank roared out again in
his fine and flexible tenor:

"For my bigges' bottle war my bes' friend, an' my week's work war all at
an end!"

The horse, by far the nobler animal of the two, stood still ever and
anon when the drunken creature swayed back and forth in his saddle,
imperiling his equilibrium. Even to his besotted mind, as he grew
more intoxicated, the danger to the child in his erratic grasp became
apparent.

"I got ter put him in a safe place--a Christmas gift," he now and then
stuttered.

When he came at last within reach of a human habitation he had been for
some time consciously on the point of falling from the saddle with
the infant, who was now quietly asleep. He noted, as in a dream, the
Crossroads' store, which was also the post-office; standing in front
of the log cabin was a