e trail who saw
that something was wrong, and he asked if he could be of help. At these
first words of sympathy I lost control of myself, and made some
incoherent reply. From that time on I was a child myself, and he a kind,
loving, guiding father. Walking beside me and helping to support me, we
soon reached the shack in which he lived. He took the dead child from my
arms, and carried it tenderly into the house; then he came back and
helped me to dismount. He asked no further questions, but led me inside,
too, soothing my outburst of grief as the reaction came in full force.
Of what happened afterward I have no memory. For the time, I lost my
reason, and he, day by day, night by night, watched over me, bathing my
hot forehead, moistening my parched lips, trying to give me courage to
pass through the awful ordeal.

"It was all of two weeks that I was there, so he told me afterward. As
my reason returned, his first thought was to get me back to my father's
ranch, having learned who I was and enough of what had happened to
understand the situation. Before we left, he took me to the little mound
back of the shack, where I said 'good-bye' to the one ray of sunshine
which had entered my life during those awful years. Then he helped me on
my mare and mounted his own horse. Together we rode silently back over
the seven or eight miles, only to learn that my father had suddenly
died, partly from the shock and partly from my unexplained absence. The
old man's strength could not endure the double blow.

"In dismay I turned to my protector, and he at once answered the query
which he read in my eyes. He made arrangements, and accompanied me to
Denver, leaving me in a hospital there, where for two months I hovered
between life and death, owing to a relapse. I saw him only once again,
when he came to the hospital and told me that he had placed my affairs
in the hands of a certain lawyer, who would look after what property my
father left, and would advise me after I was able to leave the hospital.
Then he passed out of my life, though I was told later that he stayed in
Denver until I was out of danger, before he returned East. In my
condition and because of the excitement, his name was a blank to me from
the moment I left the hospital, and I have striven ever since to recall
it. The lawyer to whom he referred me professed not to know it, and
simply said that the man had described himself as a prospector from the
East."

As Eleanor pa