ing mind and
called old Forty-nine to her side. She was surely dying; but her mind
was clear, and she understood perfectly all she said or did. Her dark
eyes were sunken deep in their places, and her long, sun-browned hands
were only skin and bone. They fell down across her heaving little
breast, as if they were the hands of a skeleton. Little wonder that her
persecutors had turned away with horror, perhaps with fear, from those
deep, hollow eyes, and the pitiful emaciated frame, that could no longer
lift itself where it lay.

The old man fell down on his knees beside her and reached his face
across to hers. With great effort she lifted her two naked long, arms,
and wound them about the old man's neck. He seemed to know that death
was near, as he reached his face over hers. Over his cheeks and down his
long white beard the tears ran like rain and fell on her face and
breast.

"Forty-nine, father! Let me call you father; may I? I never had any
father but you," said the girl feebly, as the tears fell fast on her
face.

"Yes, yes, call me father. Call me father, Carrie, my Carrie; my poor,
dear, dear little Carrie,--do call me father, for of all the world I
have only you to love and live for," sobbed the old man as if his heart
would break.

"Well, then, father, when I die take me back, take me back to the
mountains. I want to hear the water--the cool, sweet, clear water, where
I lie; and the wind in the trees--the cool, pure wind in the trees,
father. And you know the three trees just above the old cabin on the
hill by the water-fall? Bury me, bury me there. Yes, there, where I can
hear the cool water all the time, and the wind in the trees. And--and
won't you please cut my name on the tree by the water? My name,
Carrie--just Carrie, that's all. I have no other name--just Carrie. Will
you? Will you do this for me?"

"As there is a God--as I live, I will!" and the old man lifted his face
as he bared his head, and looked toward heaven.

The girl's mind wandered now. She spoke incoherently for a few moments,
and then was silent. Her form was convulsed, her breast heaved just a
little, her helpless hands reached about the old man's neck as if they
would hold him from passing from her presence; they fell away, and then
all was still. It was now gray dawn.

This man's heart was bursting with rage and a savage sorrow. He was now
stung with a sense of awful injustice. His heart was swelling with
indignation. He took up