Mrs. Abel was taken completely by surprise. For a long moment she
looked into the child's flushed and feverish face, and it looked into
her round and eager face, and smiled its confidence, and from that
instant she took it to her heart as her own. She pressed it to her bosom
with all the mother love of a good woman, for Mrs. Abel Zachariah,
primitive Eskimo though she was, was a good woman, and her heart was
soft and affectionate.

The child was ill and neglected. It was evidently suffering from
exposure and lack of nourishment. Mrs. Abel's instincts told her this at
a glance and forgetful of all else, she hurried away with it to the
tent. It drank eagerly from the cup of clear cold water which she held
to its lips, and ate as much fresh-caught cod, boiled in sea water, and
of her own coarse bread, as she thought well for it.

All the time she fondled the boy and talked to him soothingly in strange
Eskimo words which he had never heard before, but which nevertheless he
understood, for she spoke in the universal accent of the mother to her
little one. And when he had eaten he nestled snugly in her arms, as he
would have nestled in his own mother's arms, and with his head upon her
bosom closed his eyes and sighed in deep content.

Abel when his wife had gone with the child into the tent, anchored the
boat of tragedy a little way from shore, that the big wolf dogs prowling
about might not interfere with the peaceful repose of its silent
occupant. Then rowing ashore in his skiff, he selected a secluded spot
upon the island, and dug a grave.

In the rocky soil the grave was necessarily a shallow one, and he had