covered the baby with her blanket, closer than she was covered
before, and the guide who walked by Mrs. Arkwright's side drew her
cloak around her knees. But such efforts were in vain. There is a
rain that will penetrate everything, and such was the rain which
fell upon them now. Nevertheless, as I have said, hardly a word was
spoken. The poor woman, finding that the heat of her cloak
increased her sufferings, threw it open again.

"Fanny," said her husband, "you had better let him protect you as
well as he can."

She answered him merely by an impatient wave of her hand, intending
to signify that she could not speak, but that in this matter she
must have her way.

After that her husband made no further attempt to control her. He
could see, however, that ever and again she would have slipped
forward from her mule and fallen, had not the man by her side
steadied her with his hand. At every tree he protected her knees
and feet, though there was hardly room for him to move between the
beast and the bank against which he was thrust.

And then, at last, that day's work was also over, and Fanny
Arkwright slipped from her pillion down into her husband's arms at
the door of another rancho in the forest. Here there lived a large
family adding from year to year to the patch of ground which they
had rescued from the wood, and valiantly doing their part in the
extension of civilisation. Our party was but a few steps from the
door when they left their mules, but Mrs. Arkwright did not now as
heretofore hasten to receive her baby in her arms. When placed upon