s revolver. I took it up and started to
cross to the open door. But Lady Alicia caught me sharply by the arm.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, imagining, I suppose, that I'd gone
mad and was about to blow my brains out. She even took the firearm
from my hand.

"It's the men," I tried to explain. "They should be told. Give them
three signal-shots to bring them in." Then I turned to Whinnie. He
nodded and took me by the hand.

"Now take me to my boy," I said very quietly.

I was still quite calm, I think. But deep down inside of me I could
feel a faint glow. It wasn't altogether joy, and it wasn't altogether
relief. It was something which left me just a little bewildered, a
good deal like a school-girl after her first glass of champagne at
Christmas dinner. It left me oddly self-immured, miles and miles from
the figures so close to me, remote even from the kindly old man who
hobbled a little and went with a decided list to starboard as he led
me out toward what he always spoke of as the upper stable.

[Illustration: He was warm and breathing, and safe and sound]

Yet at the back of my brain, all the while, was some shadow of doubt,
of skepticism, of reiterated self-warning that it was all too good to
be true. It wasn't until I looked over the well-gnawed top rail of
Slip-Along's broken manger and saw that blessed boy there, by the
light of Whinnie's lantern, saw that blessed boy of mine half buried
in that soft and cushioning prairie-grass, saw that he was warm and
breathing, and safe and sound, that I fully realized how he had been
saved for me.

"The laddie'd been after a clutch of eggs, I'm thinkin'," whispered
Whinnie to me, pointing to a yellow stain on his waist, which was
clearly caused by the yolk of a broken egg. And Whinnie stooped over
to take Dinkie up in his arms, but I pushed him aside.

"No, I'll take him," I announced.

He'd be the hungry boy when he awakened, I remembered as I gathered him
up in my arms. My knees were a bit shaky, as I carried him back to the
shack, but I did my best to disguise that fact. I could have carried
him, I believe, right on to Buckhorn, he seemed such a precious burden.
And I was glad of that demand for physical expenditure. It seemed to
bring me down to earth again, to get things back into perspective. But
for the life of me I couldn't find a word to say to Lady Allie as I
walked into my home with Dinky-Dink in my arms. She stood watching me
for a moment or two as