Year: 1874



 their horse-for they had left the other for the Deans-had broken his leg, and that, despairing of reaching home, they had dispatched him, and rolled them selves in their bufalo-robes between his that had just kept them alive. .,4

 We'll, they were still il torpid and stupid; but I slipped off the trowsers I had on, and made Jo put them on over his, and gave Bishop the other pair, and I took the baby and climbed back on Sorrel. And I wouldn't give them any more apple today, but made them walk each at one side of Sorrel's nose, Bose barking enough to split the welkin, and curveting and galloping on before. 5

 And if it was hard coming out, it was ten times worse going back. I had two men half dead to keep alive, half crazed to hold steady. They wanted to lie down, but I knew they must have mo- tion; the wanted the apple toddy, till I threw the jug down gully, and they heard it crack and splinter on the stones. I wasn't afraid any longer, for it was clear starlight, and though I could see the dreadful edges by which I had come, I couldn't stop to fear; felt the weight of these two lives on my hands talked to them, and made them answer I made them step quickly -benumbed and dazed as they were, they had sense enough to mind me. I leaned forward and held the shoulder of the outer one as he tottered on some steep brink or slipped on glare of ice. And with Heavens help we got through the place of the echoes, and through the wood, and over the ford at last, and up the hill, and into the cabin. And there sat Mrs. Bishop, who had found her way over as soon as the storm cleared, and had staid, half hop ing, half despairing, but keeping the fire bright. -.t. ......... -

 But after we made our husbands as comfortable as we could, Jo wouldn't t rest till came and sat down and he'd his hand. "You saved nay life, my darling," he kept whispering, 's my little mountain girl, my little heart of oak! !"

 "Me and Bose," said I. r"

 ''And the trowsers," said Jo. "I think, :" he said, drowsily, "the trowsers put the courage" and he was asleep in the middle of his sentence. Bishop had been sound as log long before. So then I stole away, and gave Sorrel such 8 tub of mash as he remembered to his dying day. -5 ..3iFl..ll ' '.5t

 When the Bishops went home next morning l went to bed myself, and had a fit of sickness, and Jo sent me down to the saltwater, with the baby, to get, over it. You never saw such a fuss as mother and the girls made over that baby-you really would have thought there never was one before. '" It's the first of it's kind," said Jo, when I told him. And when we came back there was the frame house built that we're sit- ting in to-day, for the whole settlement had turned to and helped. It's old, you see, and the times have stepped ahead of it, but every plank, in it is dear to me. :;

 "I hope you'll be happier here now, dear Sue," said Jo.

 "I never, never shall be anything but happy again" said I ''for I know what it was without the baby, and I know what it would be without you p

 And the mountains Oh, as for them, I never could feel, after that ride, that they were anything but 8 part of my self. They were part of my suffering and of my joy that dreadful night; they helped me on and cheered me with the airy voices that they lent, and I love them, and shall lie down to my sleep securely under their shadow. Still, it's strange that whenever have night mare all that old trouble of my youth rises again, and. There's Jo, now 1! Look at him, so upright and stalwart, with his white head and his blue eye 1! That's mountaineer's own tread. so 1.-the and light He's better man than either of his sons to-day, young as ever he was, my Jo, and as full of his mis- chief-for to the present time, do you know, he leases me about those trowsers.