and then the watcher outside saw the sleeping face of a baby.

There was a rumour in the camp that Posey Breem had not always been
the man that he was--that a woman had once blessed his life. But since
they had carried the young mother away, with her dead baby on her
breast, to place the two in one deep grave together, he had gone
steadily downward.

With hungry eyes Breem gazed at the scene in the poor little house,
his thoughts flying backward over the years. A sudden sharp, impatient
whistle roused him, and he strode hastily back to the waiting men.

"Well, Pose?" interrogated Skid impatiently.

"He's there, all right," said Breem, in a peculiar tone. "I ain't
overmuch given to advising prowling round folks' houses, but you
fellows just look in yonder." He jerked his head toward the shack. And
a line of big, rough-looking men filed into the little illumined
space, to come back presently silent and subdued.

"Now let's go home," said Breem, turning his horse toward camp.

"And your horse, Pose?" questioned Bates.

"Burn the horse!" said Breem quickly. "D'ye think the like of yonder's
a horse thief? I ain't worrying 'bout the horse." And the men rode
back to camp silently.

The next morning, when Breem swung open the door of the stall, he was
not surprised to find the red roan standing quietly by the side of his
mate. A bit of crumpled paper was pinned to the blanket. Breem read:

I rode your horse. I had to. I'll surely make it right.

BENNETT.

"Course he had to!" growled the lumberman, and he passed the paper
round.

"Oncommon peart baby," said Skid, at last.

"Dreadful cold shack, though!" muttered Bates, conveying a quarter of
a griddlecake to his mouth.

"That's just it," said Pose, scowling. "Just let a stiff nip of winter
come, and the woman yonder and the little critter, they'd freeze,
that's what they'd do, in that old rattletrap."

The men looked at one another in solemn assent. "And I've been
thinking," continued Breem, "since Bennett there belonged to the camp,
and since we kind of misused the fellow for being stingy--for which we
ought to have been smashed with logs--that we have a kind of a claim
on 'em, as 'twere, and they on us. And we must get 'em out of that
yonder before they freeze plumb solid." He stopped inquiringly.

"Right as right," assented several.

"And I've been thinking," said Bates suddenly, "about that st