our beds if so be he
could."

While some of the hardly trappers were dragging the prisoner away to
confine him according to the directions they had received, Gregory bent
over the form of the little girl, whom he took tenderly in his arms and
kissed with a passion that told of the hold she had upon his heart.

Jessie was coming to and opened her blue eyes at this moment, shrinking
closer to her grandfather and hugging her arms about his neck; then she
peeped timidly around as if in search of the bad parent who had tried to
get her to desert this precious home she loved so well.

Owen, seeing that she was unharmed, turned to leave, but her eyes caught
sight of him and she called his name.

"Cousin Owen, please get my dolly for me; she's afraid to be alone," she
said; and obediently the lad stepped forward to obey, while old Gregory
smiled to see that the little queen of the post had found another loyal
subject who was ready to cater abjectly to her petty whims.

"Boy," he said, as Owen flashed him a glance ere going out; "I must see
you in the morning. You must not think of going hence, for here you
belong to this little girl and to me! Stay with us; let us show by our
love what sorrow for the past has done for me. Your act this night has
bound you to us in chains that must not be lightly broken. Owen, lad,
you will find that the old iron spirit can be easily bent now. Do not
leave us; we need you, both Jessie and I."

Owen felt a lump in his throat, and tears in his eyes, which seemed to
him such a childish sensation that he could not bear they should notice
it; so abruptly wheeling he dashed from the room. But as he went he
heard that sweet childish voice calling after him:

"Cousin Owen, say you will stay, please; we want you, dolly and me!"

He was shaking with the emotion that had almost overpowered him and yet
his boyish heart seemed to be filled with satisfaction and delight over
the way all things had come about.

That strong and desperate man had not been able to make him yield an
inch, and yet here he was ready to fall down and admit himself a
prisoner, simply because a child had called him "cousin."

He felt that he could not go back to the tent while in such a disturbed
state of mind, and accordingly wandered away to where he might be alone,
with the quiet stars looking down upon him from above.

How many times in the past had he stood under this same starry heavens
and wrestled with the problems