at you think o' Dawson?" the low voice asked.

Kaviak understood the look at least, and smiled back, grew suddenly
grave, intent, looked sharply round, loosed his hold of the Colonel,
bent down, and retired behind the bed. That was where Nig was. Their
foregathering added nothing to the tranquility of the occasion, and
both were driven forth by Maudie.

Potts read the Colonel his letters, and helped him to sign a couple of
cheques. The "Louisville instructions" had come through at last.

After that the Colonel slept, and when he woke it was only to wander
away into that world where Maudie was lost utterly, and where the
Colonel was at home. There was chastening in such hours for Maudie of
Minook. "Now he's found the Other One," she would say to herself--"the
One he was looking for."

That same evening, as they sat in the tent in an interval of relief
from the Colonel's muttering monotone, they heard Nig making some sort
of unusual manifestation outside; heard the grunting of those pioneer
pigs; heard sounds of a whispered "Sh! Kaviak. Shut up, Nig!" Then a
low, tuneless crooning:

"Wen yo' see a pig a-goin' along
Widder straw in de sider 'is mouf,
It'll be er tuhble wintuh,
En yo' bettah move down Souf."

"Why, the Boy's back!" said the Colonel suddenly in a clear, collected
voice.

Maudie had jumped up, but the Boy put his head in the tent, smiling,
and calling out:

"They told me he was getting on all right, but I just thought maybe he
was asleep." He came in and bent over his pardner. "Hello, everybody!
Why, you got it so fine and dark in here, I can hardly see how well
you're lookin', Colonel!" And he dropped into the nurse's place by the
bedside.

"Maudie's lined the tent with black drill," said the Colonel. "You
brought home anything to eat?"

"Well, no----" (Maudie telegraphed); "found it all I could do to bring
myself back."

"Oh, well, that's the main thing," said the Colonel, battling with
disappointment. Pricked by some quickened memory of the Boy's last
home-coming: "I've had pretty queer dreams about you: been givin'
Maudie the meanest kind of a time."

"Don't go gassin', Colonel," admonished the nurse.

"It's pretty tough, I can tell you," he said irritably, "to be as weak
as a day-old baby, and to have to let other people----"

"Mustn't talk!" ordered Mac. The Colonel raised his head with sudden
anger. It did not mend matters that Maudie was there to hold him down
before a