frantic promises. She pleaded, she sobbed, she
raved incoherently. Holding to the men with a fierce grip she was
dragged along on her knees. Then letting go, she cursed the tribe; she
called upon them the malediction of all the spirits. Her voice
broke--she could only scream. She tore her hair and fell prostrate,
her body throbbing on the rocks.

Above the clamor Annadoah suddenly heard a strangely familiar voice
shouting from the distance. Raising herself slightly, she saw a
well-known figure bounding over the promontory toward the murderous
natives. Her heart bounded--she recognized Ootah.

Having returned from the mountains Ootah had learned of Annadoah's
flight and the pursuit; and with an unselfish determination to save the
child he had immediately followed.

At the very edge of the cliff the natives paused. In his hands,
Attalaq, the leader of the pursuit, held the crying babe. Their voices
were raised to an uproar; the women were chattering fiercely. With
quick dexterity Attalaq loosely twisted a leather thong about the
baby's neck, and in haste to finish the tragic task began swaying it in
his hands so as to give the helpless creature momentum in its plunge to
death. Ootah bounded toward them.

"_Aulate_! _Aulate_! Halt!" Ootah cried. "I will be father to
Annadoah's child."

The crowd turned--for a moment they gazed with mingled feelings of awed
surprise, half-incredulous wonder and speechless admiration upon this
man who offered to make the greatest sacrifice possible to one of the
tribe; to become the father, protector and supporter of another man's
helpless, defective infant. For, according to their custom, they just
as spontaneously grant life to a defective child when a member offers
to assume sole responsibility for its keeping as they are implacably
determined upon its death if its mother is husbandless. But seldom
does any man make this sacrifice; in this land of rigorous hardship and
starvation it means much.

Ootah fought his way among them. They gave way, and a low groan
arose--his noble offer had come too late!

On the crest of a golden wave a tiny white speck of a baby face gazed
in open-eyed, frightened astonishment skyward, and in a lull of the
intermittent rush of waters a thin, piercing baby cry arose from the
golden sea.

Awe-stricken, abashed, suddenly overwhelmed with regret and shame, the
natives silently drew back . . . Ootah paused at the very edge of the
clif