ee
my past life forgotten, my faults forgiven; and I think I see you both
loving my baby, and perhaps loving me a little for its sake. Thank you,
Rand, thank you!"

For Rand's hand had caught hers beside the pillow, and he was standing
over her, whiter than she. Something in the pressure of his hand
emboldened her to go on, and even lent a certain strength to her voice.

"When it comes to THAT, Rand, you'll not let these people take the baby
away. You'll keep it HERE with you until HE comes. And something tells
me that he will come when I am gone. You'll keep it here in the pure air
and sunlight of the mountain, and out of those wicked depths below; and
when I am gone, and they are gone, and only you and Ruth and baby
are here, maybe you'll think that it came to you in a cloud on the
mountain,--a cloud that lingered only long enough to drop its burden,
and faded, leaving the sunlight and dew behind. What is it, Rand? What
are you looking at?"

"I was thinking," said Rand in a strange altered voice, "that I must
trouble you to let me take down those duds and furbelows that hang on
the wall, so that I can get at some traps of mine behind them." He
took some articles from the wall, replaced the dresses of Mrs. Sol, and
answered Mornie's look of inquiry.

"I was only getting at my purse and my revolver," he said, showing them.
"I've got to get some stores at the Ferry by daylight."

Mornie sighed. "I'm giving you great trouble, Rand, I know; but it won't
be for long."

He muttered something, took her hand again, and bade her "good-night."
When he reached the door, he looked back. The light was shining full
upon her face as she lay there, with her babe on her breast, bravely
"looking ahead."

IV.

THE CLOUDS PASS.

It was early morning at the Ferry. The "up coach" had passed, with
lights unextinguished, and the "outsides" still asleep. The ferryman had
gone up to the Ferry Mansion House, swinging his lantern, and had found
the sleepy-looking "all night" bar-keeper on the point of withdrawing
for the day on a mattress under the bar. An Indian half-breed, porter
of the Mansion House, was washing out the stains of recent nocturnal
dissipation from the bar-room and veranda; a few birds were twittering
on the cotton-woods beside the river; a bolder few had alighted upon
the veranda, and were trying to reconcile the existence of so much
lemon-peel and cigar-stumps with their ideas of a beneficent Creator.
A fain