"I'll jest carry the baby
ter my wife, an' come back fur you. I allowed yer couldn't git up on
yer feet;" and the tall form disappeared. The baby, thus vigorously
disturbed from her warm sleep, began to cry.
"Thank God!" said Alessandro, at the plunging horses' heads. "The
child is alive! Majella!" he called.
"Yes, Alessandro," she answered faintly, the gusts sweeping her
voice like a distant echo past him.
It was a marvellous rescue. They had been nearer the old
sheep-corral than Alessandro had thought; but except that other
storm-beaten travellers had reached it before them, Alessandro had
never found it. Just as he felt his strength failing him, and had
thought to himself, in almost the same despairing words as
Ramona, "This will end all our troubles," he saw a faint light to the
left. Instantly he had turned the horses' heads towards it. The
ground was rough and broken, and more than once he had been in
danger of overturning the wagon; but he had pressed on, shouting
at intervals for help. At last his call was answered, and another
light appeared; this time a swinging one, coming slowly towards
him,-- a lantern, in the hand of a man, whose first words, "Wall,
stranger, I allow yer inter trouble," were as intelligible to
Alessandro as if they had been spoken in the purest San Luiseno
dialect.
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