head to keep the blood from flowing.
Sahwah had said so. Sahwah said he would bleed to death if she did not.
Sahwah had just started to do it, when she had come back and reported
her failure to bring help. Now she had to do it. She pressed her hands
tightly over the wound as Sahwah had showed her, and tried to close her
ears to the gurgling. But the old terror had her by the throat,
suffocating her, paralyzing her hands. They dropped uselessly at her
sides; she crouched limp and panting and nerveless beside the helpless
man. Then, for the first time in her life Oh-Pshaw began to fight the
fear. She forced her clammy hands back over the wound, she cast
desperately around for something to think about beside the murmuring
horror at her feet. She began to sing, in a scarcely audible voice, and
through chattering teeth:

"L-lay m-me to sl-leep in sh-sheltering flame,
O M-master of the Hidden F-fire!
W-w-ash pure my heart, and c-cleanse f-for me
M-my Soul's D-desire!"

Over and over she sang it, through chattering teeth, keeping in her mind
the picture of a warm, glowing fire and herself sitting beside it, cozy
and comfortable, and finally the picture became so real that she forgot
about the gurgling water and gave herself up to pleasant fire dreams.
Oh-Pshaw herself was master, not of the Hidden Fire, but of the Hidden
Fear! She was still sitting beside her imaginary fire when footsteps
startled her and in another minute the place was ablaze with
searchlights and swarming over with people.

CHAPTER XIX

KAISER BILL MIXES IN

"Isn't it just too wonderful for anything?" said Hinpoha in an awed
tone. Then she burst out triumphantly, "I _told_ her there was a
light-haired man coming into her life--and he did! Did you ever _hear_
of anything so romantic as this, anyway? He said she was a dream of his
come to life! When he first saw her in the train that day he thought she
wasn't _real_! And then finding my locket on the floor that way and
seeing her picture in it and thinking it was _her_ locket, and wearing
it all this time! I never _heard_ of anything so wonderful. It's better
than anything I ever read in a book. Such a nice-sounding name he has,
too--Robert Allison; it's so--unanimous."

"Don't you mean 'euphonious'?" asked Migwan with a smile.

"Well, 'euphonious,' then," amended Hinpoha. Wrapped up as she was in
this marvel of romance that had happened in the placid, everyday lives
of the Winnebagos,