WHILE Gaston and the men were carrying Flora and Tom to the house, another searching party was formed. There were no women and children among them, only grim-visaged silent men, and a pair of little mild-eyed sharp-nosed blood-hounds. All the morning men were coming in from the country and joining this silent army of searchers.

Doctor Graham came, looked long and gravely at Flora and turned a sad face toward Tom.

The ole soldier grasped his arm before he spoke. “‘Now, doctor wait—don’t say a word yet. I don’t want to know the truth, if it’s the worst. Don’t kill me in a minute. Let me live as long as there’s breath in her body—after that! well, that’s the end—there’s nothin’ after that!”

The doctor started to speak.

“Wait,” pleaded Tom, “let me tell you something. I’ve been praying all night. I’ve seen God face to face. She can’t die. He told me so—”

He paused and his grip on the doctor’s arm relaxed as though he were about to faint, but he rallied.

The kindly old doctor said gently, “Sit down Tom.”

He tried to lead Tom away from the bed, but he held on like a bull dog.

The child breathed heavily and moaned.

Tom’s face brightened. “She’s comin’ to, doctor,—thank God!”

The doctor paid no more attention to him and went on with his work as best he could.

Tom laid his tear-stained face close to hers, and murmured soothingly to her as he used to when she was a wee baby in his arms, “There, there, honey, it will be all right now! The doctor’s here, and he ’ll do all he can! And what he can’t do, God will. The doctor ’ll save you. God will save you! He loves you. He loves me. I prayed all night. He heard me. I saw the shinin’ glory of His face! He’s only tryin’ His poor old servant.”

The broken artery was found and tied and the bleeding stopped. When the wound in her head was dressed the doctor turned to Tom, “That wound is bad, but not necessarily fatal.”

“Praise God!”

“Keep the house quiet and don’t let her see a strange face when she regains consciousness,” was his parting injunction.

The next morning her breathing was regular, and pulse stronger, but feverish; and about seven o’clock she came out of her comatose state and regained consciousness. She spoke but once, and apparently at the sound of her own voice immediately went into a convulsion, clinching her little fists, screaming and calling to her father for help!

When Tom first heard that awful cry and saw her terrified eyes and drawn face, he tried to cover his own eyes and stop his ears. Then he gathered the little convulsed body into his arms and crooned into her ears, “There, Pappy’s baby, don’t cry! Pappy’s got you now. Nothin’ can hurt you. There, there, nothin’ shall come nigh you!”

He covered her face with tears and kisses while he whispered and soothed her to sleep. When the noon train came up from Independence, General Worth arrived. Tom had asked Gaston to telegraph for him in his name.

Tom eagerly grasped his hand. “General I knowed you’d come—you’re a man to tie to. I never knowed you to fail me in your life. You’re one of the smartest men in the world too. You never got us boys in a hole so deep you didn’t pull us out”—

“What can I do for you?” interrupted the General.

“Ah, now’s the worst of all, General. I’m in water too deep for me. My baby, the last one left on earth, the apple of my eye, all that holds my old achin’ body to this world—she’s—about—to—die! I can’t let her. General, you must save her for me. I want more doctors. They say there’s a great doctor at Independence. I want ’em all. Tell ’em it’s a poor old one-legged soldier who’s shot all to pieces and lost his wife and all his children—all but this one baby. And I can’t lose her! They ’ll come if you ask ’em—” His voice broke.

“I ’ll do it, Tom. I ’ll have them here on a special in three hours or maybe sooner,” returned the General pressing his hand and hurrying to the telegraph office.

The doctors arrived at three o’clock and held a consultation with Doctor Graham. They decided that the loss of blood had been so great that the only chance to save her was in the transfusion of blood.

“I ’ll give her the blood, Tom,” said Gaston quietly removing his coat and baring his arm.

The old soldier looked up through grateful tears.

“Next to the General, you’re the best friend God ever give me, boy!”

The General turned his face away and looked out of the window. The doctors immediately performed the operation, transfusing blood from Gaston into the child.

The results did not seem to promise what they had hoped. Her fever rose steadily. She became conscious again and immediately went into the most fearful convulsions, breaking the torn artery a second time.

Just as the sun sank behind the blue mountains peaks in the west, her heart fluttered and she was dead.

Tom sat by the bed for two hours, looking, looking, looking with wide staring eyes at her white dead face. There was not the trace of a tear. His mouth was set in a hard cold way and he never moved or spoke.

The Preacher tried to comfort Tom, who stared at him as though he did not recognise him at first, and then slowly began, “Go away, Preacher, I don’t want to see or talk to you now. It’s all a swindle and a lie. There is no God!”

“Tom, Tom!” groaned the Preacher.

“I tell you I mean it,” he continued. “I don’t want any more of God or His heaven. I don’t want to see God. For if I should see Him, I’d shake my fist in His face and ask him where His almighty power was when my poor little baby was screamin’ for help while that damned black beast was tearin’ her to pieces! Many and many a time I’ve praised God when I read the Bible there where it said, not a sparrow falleth to the ground without His knowledge, and the very hairs of our head are numbered. Well, where was He when my little bird was flutterin’ her broken bleedin’ wings in the claws of that stinkin’ baboon,—damn him to everlastin’ hell!—It’s all a swindle I tell you!”

The Preacher was watching him now with silent pity and tenderness.

“What a lie it all is!” Tom repeated. “Scratch my name off the church roll. I ain’t got many more days here, but I won’t lie. I’m not a hypocrite. I’m going to meet God cursin’ Him to His face!”

The Preacher slipped his arm around the old soldier’s neck, and smoothed the tangled hair back from his forehead as he said brokenly, “Tom, I love you! My whole soul is melted in sympathy and pity for you!”

The stricken man looked up into the face of his friend, saw his tears and felt the warmth of his love flood his heart, and at last he burst into tears.

“Oh! Preacher, Preacher! you’re a good friend I know, but I’m done, I can’t live any more! Every minute, day and night, I ’ll hear them awful screams—her a callin’ me for help! I can see her lyin’ out there in the woods all night alone moanin’ and bleedin’!”

His breast heaved and he paused as if in reverie. And then he sprang up, his face livid and convulsed w............