xclaimed. "My missus only
lost hers yesterday, and she'd never give this one up now."

"Then you've had a bit of bad luck yourself?" the stranger said quickly.
"Well, you know what it is, just as I do, and you'll know why I want to
shove along. Good-bye, mate. You've done a real kind act to me. And see,
if I don't get back in time, call him Tony, will you?"

"Tony?" Taylor repeated.

"That's it; after me, that is. But I hope I'm back. Anyhow, so long,"
the man said, as he turned away and proceeded to mount his horse.

"Here, hold on," Taylor exclaimed.

But the man did not seem to hear, and Taylor was halfway over the fence
when the sound of a woman's voice, calling him, came from the direction
of the hut. He paused and listened. It was the neighbour calling him.

The man had started his horse, and in a few minutes would be well on his
way. He could soon overtake the man now and learn something more
definite as to the parentage of the child he was practically adopting.
He felt that more was due to him than the scant information that had
been supplied; that the man who had called for his help, and received
it, ought to be more explicit than he had been, and ought to show more
confidence in him than to go off, as soon as the child was disposed of,
in silence and mystery.

"Here, hold on," he repeated, as he climbed over the fence; but as he
reached the ground on the other side he heard the cry repeated from the
direction of the hut, and he paused, irresolute.

There might be a repetition of the scene that had occurred when he was
called the previous day; the life of this second little creature might
be going out like that of the other, and Taylor felt uneasy when he
remembered the anguish in the mother's eyes and the wailing sorrow of
her voice. If he ran after the man he would escape all that, for it
would be over by the time that he returned; but even as the thought
passed through his brain he resented it. Something of the feeling he had
experienced when he saw his wife clutch at the child came to him, and
without further heed for the stranger, he scrambled back over his fence
and ran to the hut.

At the door he met the neighbour.

"She wouldn't rest till I called you," she said, jerking her head
towards the interior. "Where's the other chap?"

"He's gone on," Taylor answered, as he went into the room and over to
the bed where his wife lay.

She looked at him with a soft smile on her face.

"Look at him,