With both arms thus filled with the helpless morsels of humanity, he had no trouble in seating himself in the saddle. He laughed a little, thinking what a spectacle they must make; and Father Orin laughed too, with the shamefacedness that the best men feel when they do such gentle things. And then the strange, pathetic journey through the wilderness began.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Father Orin and Toby.]

"Steady, Toby. That's right, old man," said the priest, now and then.

The doctor kept a close, anxious watch over the child in Father Orin's arms, and frequently glanced down at the two little faces lying in the hollow of his own arms. Any one of the three,--or all of them--might cease to breathe at any moment. It seemed to both the anxious men that they were a long time in going to the Sisters' house, although the distance was but a few miles. When the log refuge first came in sight through the trees, they breathed a deep sigh of relief in the same breath. The Sisters, who had been warned, saw them coming, and ran to meet them, and took the babies from their arms. When the little ones had been borne in the house and put to bed, the doctor sat down beside them to see what more might be done. But the priest, without rest or delay, set out on another errand of mercy. Toby, needing no word or hint, at once quickened his pace, knowing full well the difference between this business and that which was just finished, so far as they were responsible.

"You're right, old man. Keep us up to the mark, right up to the mark,"

chuckled Father Orin. "I'm mighty tired, and I'm afraid I might shirk if you would let me."

As he bent down with a bantering chuckle to pat the horse's inflexible neck, a man's voice suddenly hailed them from the darkening woods lying at their back.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! Hold on!" the unseen man shouted.

They turned quickly and stood still, looking in the direction from which the shouting came. A horseman soon appeared under the trees and came galloping after them, and when he had drawn nearer, the priest saw, with some annoyance, that it was Tommy Dye. As he reined up beside them, Toby turned his head slowly and gave the horse precisely the same look that Father Orin gave the rider. Toby wanted to have nothing more to do with a tricky race-horse than Father Orin wished to have to do with a shady adventurer.

Tommy Dye looked at them both with a grin. "I saw you just now--you and the new doctor--a-toting them there youngsters."

Father Orin straightened up, feeling and showing the embarra.s.sment and indignation that every man, lay and clerical alike, feels and shows at being seen by another man acting as a nurse to a child.

"Well, what of it?" he retorted, as naturally as if he had never worn a ca.s.sock.

Tommy Dye grinned again, more broadly than before. He took off his hat and rubbed his shock of red hair the wrong way. The humor of the recollection became too much for him, and he roared with laughter. Toby of his own indignant accord now moved to go on, and Father Orin gathered up the reins saying rather shortly that he had urgent business, and must be riding along.

"I say--wait a minute. What makes you in such an all-fired hurry?" Tommy Dye called after them.

Toby stopped reluctantly, and he and Father Orin waited with visible unwillingness, until Tommy Dye came up again and stammeringly began what he had to say. He did not know how to address a priest. He had never before had occasion to speak to a churchman of any denomination. So that he now plunged in without any address at all:

"I say--who pays for them there youngsters, yonder?" he blurted.

Father Orin merely looked at him in silence for a moment, and then gathered up the reins once more.

Tommy Dye saw that there was something amiss, that he had made some mistake, and not knowing what it was, he resorted to the means which he usually employed to set all matters right. He hastily plunged his hand in the outer pocket of his coat, and then dropped the bottle back in its place still more hastily, after another glance at the priest.

"Well, I thought you might like it," he said with a touch of defiance, feeling it necessary to a.s.sert himself. "When a man's face is as red as yours, I don't see why a fellow mightn't ask him to take a drink."

Father Orin laughed with ready good humor.

"My face is red, my friend. I can't deny that fact; but the redness comes from a thin skin and rough weather. What is it you want? I haven't time to wait."

"Say, I kinder thought, seeing you and the doctor with them babies just now,"--grinning again at the comical recollection--"that maybe you would let me come into the game. I'd like to take a hand in the deal, if there's room for another player. I'll put up the stakes right now." His hand went into his breeches pocket this time. "Here's the roll I won on the fall races. Put it all up on the game. What's the odds? Come easy, go easy."

He held out the money. "I saw you at the court-house, too," he added sheepishly, as if trying to excuse what he did.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Father Orin, gravely. "I didn't understand. I've done you great injustice."

"Hey? What did you say?"

"The Sisters would be only too glad to use this money for those children, and for other little ones just as helpless and needy,"

murmuring something about the use purifying the source. "But I want you to take it to them yourself, and give it to them with your own hands."

"Me! Old Tommy Dye!"

The coa.r.s.e face actually turned pale under its big freckles. Its dismay was so comical that Father Orin laughed till the woods rang with his hearty, merry voice. Toby turned his head in sober disapproval of such unseemly levity, and Tommy Dye was a good deal miffed.

"'Pears to me you are mighty lively--and most of the time, too," he said, in a tone of offence, tinged with wonder.

"Why not?" said the priest, still chuckling. "Why shouldn't I be lively?"

Tommy Dye hesitated, more puzzled now than angry. "Well, you see, your job has always seemed to me just about the lonesomest there is."

Father Orin began to laugh again, but he was hushed by the soft, sweet pealing of the Angelus through the shadowed forest. The gambler also listened, with a softening change in the recklessness of his face.

"The sound of that bell always makes me feel queer," he stammered. "It sets me to thinking about home, too,--and home folks. I'm blamed if I can see how it is. I never had any home, and if I've got any kin-folks, I don't know where they live. But anyhow, that's the way the ringing of that bell always makes me feel. Say! there's lots of things about your church that come over a fellow like that. Now there the very name of that little house back yonder amongst them trees--Our Lady's Chapel.

That's just it--just to the notch what I mean--there's something kind of homelike in the name itself. And that's the very difference between your church and the other churches. The Protestant church seems real lonesome, like a sort of bachelor's hall. The Catholic church makes you feel at home, because there's always a mother in the house."

"Take care!" exclaimed the priest. "But I am sure you don't mean to be irreverent, my friend. And about your generosity to the orphans. Here, let me give the money back. I am in earnest in asking you to give it to the Sisters with your own hands. When they see you and you see them, you will both understand each other better than if I were to try ever so long and hard to explain."

He looked at Tommy Dye for a moment with a returning smile, but the pity of it all put the humor aside.

"The doctor will be coming along in a moment--ah, there he comes now! I will ask him to go with you to see the Sisters. I am sorry that I cannot turn back with you myself. I should be glad to."

It did not take long to state the case to the doctor, who readily agreed to do what the priest asked. Tommy Dye was by this time so thoroughly cowed by the situation in which he thus found himself that he no longer resisted. There was one uncertain instant when, seeing the Sisters appear in the door, he was undecided whether to run away or go on. But he was afraid to flee, with the Sisters' eyes upon him, and the doctor led him into the house. The ladies had been frightened by the doctor's unexpected and speedy return; but he soon quieted their fears, and made them happy by telling them the reason of his turning back. Sister Teresa, the Lady Superior, keenly touched, quickly turned to Tommy Dye and he handed her the money in awkward haste.

"How good of you! How generous--how n.o.ble! Ah, you don't know how much good this will do," she said, with her eyes full of tears. "We thank you with all our hearts for ourselves and for the children."

"Thank _you_,--ma'am," stammered Tommy Dye, scarlet, and almost dumb.

None of the many sins of which he had been suspected had ever made him feel nearly so uncomfortable as he felt now. None of the many sins of which he had been convicted had ever made him look half so guilty as he looked now.

"You mustn't call me 'ma'am,'" said Sister Teresa. "You must call me Sister, and Sister Elizabeth and Sister Angela are your sisters, too.

You must always think of us as your real sisters, and the little ones belong to you after this, as much as they do to us. You must always remember that. Will you come into the other room and see them? Or I will fetch--"

But Tommy Dye could not endure any more. He turned with hardly a word, and fled in desperate haste. The Sisters gazed after him in surprise, and with a good deal of alarm, until Paul Colbert told them about him, who and what he was, of his meeting with Father Orin, and the whole story of the money.

"The poor fellow," said Sister Teresa, softly. "We will pray that the gift may bring him some of the good that it will do the children. Yes, we will hereafter remember him, also, in the prayers for our benefactors," turning her gentle, smiling gaze on the young doctor.

And then he reddened almost as suddenly as Tommy Dye had done, and he likewise was hastening to make his escape when Sister Teresa called him back, to ask if he would not be pa.s.sing Cedar House on the way home. He said that he would, reddening again. Whereupon the Sister begged as a favor, that he would stop at the door and tell Ruth to come on the next day, if possible, to look at the sewing which Sister Angela was doing for her.

"Sister Angela is a wonderful needle-woman," Sister Teresa could not help adding with modest pride. "She learned to sew and to do the finest embroidery while she was studying in a convent in France. She could earn a great deal of money for the little ones if we were where there were more patrons who wished to have such fine sewing done. But n.o.body in this wild country ever wants it except Mr. Alston for Ruth."

"Mr. Alston for Ruth," Paul Colbert repeated, wonderingly.

"Oh, yes. He thinks nothing is fine enough for Ruth," said Sister Teresa, simply. "And he pays anything that Sister Angela asks. He never says a word about the price. Sometimes I fear we ask too much. But then, the children need so many things, and we have so few ways of earning money. You won't mind stopping to tell Ruth, doctor? Ask her to come early to-morrow morning, please. And another thing, if it isn't too much trouble. Tell her to bring more of the finest thread lace."

This was the first time that Paul Colbert had heard Philip Alston's name a.s.sociated with Ruth. It was a shock to hear the names called in the same breath, for he already knew as much of Philip Alston as any one was permitted to know. He was aware of the suspicion which blackened his reputation. He had learned this on first coming to the country. Father Orin, when asked, had told him something of the reasons for the general distrust and fear of the man. But the doctor himself had never seen him, and, naturally enough, thought of him as the usual coa.r.s.e leader of lawlessness, only more daring and cunning, perhaps, than the rest of his kind. Thus it was that trying to understand only bewildered the young man more and more, so that he was still filled with shocked wonder when he came within sight of Ruth's home.

The day was nearing its close. In the forest bordering the bridle-path, dark shades were noiselessly marshalling beneath the great trees. But the sunset still reddened the river, and the reflected light shone on the windows of Cedar House. He glanced at her chamber window before seeing that she stood on the gra.s.s by the front door, giving the swan bits of bread from her fingers while the jealous birds, forgetting to go to roost, watched and scolded from the low branches overhead. But she had seen him a long way off and looked up as he approached.