eeping on each other's shoulders
after the fashion of women.

I heard a cough inside Hamilton's tent. Going forward, I lifted the
canvas flap and found Eric sitting gloomily on a pile of robes.

"Eric," I cried, in as steady a voice as I command, which indeed, was
shaking sadly, and I held the child back that Hamilton might not see,
"Eric, old man, I think at last we've run the knaves down."

"Hullo!" he exclaimed with a start, not knowing what I had said. "Are
you men back? Did you find out anything?"

"Why--yes," said I: "we found this," and I signalled Frances to bring
Miriam.

This was no way to prepare a man for a shock that might unhinge reason;
but my mind had become a vacuum and the warm breath of the child
nestling about my neck brought a mist before my eyes.

"What did you say you had found?" asked Hamilton, looking up from his
gun to the tent-way; for the morning light already smote through the
dark.

"This," I said, lifting the canvas a second time and drawing Miriam
forward.

I could but place the child in her arms. She glided in. The flap fell.
There was the smothered outcry of one soul--rent by pain.

"Miriam--Miriam--my God--Miriam!" "Come away," whispered a choky voice
by my side, and Frances linked her arm through mine.

Then the tent was filled and the night air palpitated with sounds of
anguished weeping. And with tears raining from my eyes, I hastened away
from what was too sacred for any ear but a pitying God's. That had come
to my life which taught me the depths of Hamilton's suffering.

"Dearest," said I, "now we understand both the pain and the joy of
loving," and I kissed her white brow.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE PRIEST JOURNEYS TO A FAR COUNTRY

Again the guest-chamber of the Sutherland home was occupied.

How came it that a Catholic priest lay under a Protestant roof? How
comes it that the new west ever ruthlessly strips reality naked of creed
and prejudice and caste, ever breaks down the barrier relics of a
mouldering past, ever forces recognition of men as individuals with
individual rights, apart from sect and class and unmerited prerogatives?
The Catholic priest was wounded. The Protestant home was near. Manhood
in Protestant garb recognized manhood in Roman cassock. Necessity
commanded. Prejudice obeyed as it ever obeys in that vast land of
untrameled freedom. So Father Holland was cared for in the Protestant
home with a tenderness which Mr. Sutherland would have repu