e was a nurse, his mother must needs protest against the
habit in question more earnestly than usual, representing the
necessities of the case in a way so affectionate and anxious that the
tender-hearted Ben felt himself growing tender-footed, even while yet he
stood on the solid earth. It took her but a few minutes to tell him all
she knew of Sprigg's story, and it was as much as Elster knew, or any
one else, indeed, excepting Jervis Whitney himself. When he had heard
it, the young hunter, big with wonder and pity, leaned his rifle against
the wall beside the doorway, and, treading the floor as lightly as were
he walking on thin ice, followed his mother into a back room, which had
been assigned to the little sufferer.

There, pale as the dead, and as senseless, he lay, and as motionless,
saving the slightest breathing, which might encourage the hope that, in
the contest between them, life still held the advantage over death.
Every now and then a tremor, somewhat more perceptible than the
breathing, would play for a moment over the lacerated limbs, like the
flickering flame of an expiring lamp. Ben could remain no longer than
just sufficed for one good look at his unfortunate little friend, as
that was enough to call forth a blubbering outburst of pitiful feeling
much too boisterous for a place like that, and quite as much to be
protested against by the doctors and nurses as his horse-like tread. So
he conveyed himself away with as little noise as a rumbling, puncheon
floor would well allow a half-grown boy with full-grown feet. And
gathering up his rifle as he passed out at the door, went crying home.
Some people, especially the harder cases among the boys, may regard such
an exhibition of feeling as more beseeming a faint-hearted girl than a
bold-hearted young hunter. But you and I know too well what human nature
ought to be than to think anything of the sort. We know that this
tenderness of feeling--let them call it weakness if they will--was the
best part of young Ben Logan's strength, and that, without it, the son
of a white man's wife would have been no better than the son of a red
man's squaw.

Next morning, at rise of sun--you all know what a desperately early
riser the sun is in the busy month of June--Ben was again at grandpap's
house to learn how it was faring with his little friend, and to offer
such help in the case as a boy might render. His mother, who, with
Bertha Bryant's mother, had watched all night,