Climbing slowly back into his saddle, because of the little one he held so carefully, Gaspar laid its cold hand upon the gelding's neck, but it slid listlessly aside and he realized that he had come not a moment too soon.
All night they wandered, the child lying on Gaspar's breast wrapped in his coat, while the mist penetrated his own clothing and seemed to creep into his very thoughts, numbing them to a sort of despair that no effort could cast off. The wail of the child lost in that dreariness had brought back, like a lightning's flash, the earliest memories of his life and revived his never-dying hatred of his parent's slayers.
"An Indian's hand was in this work!" he mused. "Doubtless, the mother for whom it grieved has met the fate which befell my own. And Abel said that it was among such as these my Sun Maid had gone!"
Then justice called to mind his knowledge of Wahneenah, of the Black Partridge, old Winnemeg, and others, and his mood softened somewhat; but still memory tormented him and the white fog seemed a background for ghastly scenes too awful for words. Above all and through all, one consciousness was keener and fiercer than the others:
"My Kitty is among them at this moment! O, God, keep her!"
It was the strongest cry of his yearning heart; yet underneath lay an impotent rage at his own powerlessness to help in this preservation.
"For what is my manhood or my courage worth to her now? And even the Deity seems veiled by this deadening, suffocating mist!"
But Tempest moved steadily on once more, and the little child warmed to life on his breast; and by degrees the man's self-torment ceased. Then he lifted his eyes afresh and struggled to pierce the gloom.
What was that? A light! A little yellow spot in the gray whiteness, which the horse was first to see and toward which he now hastened with a firmer speed.
"It's a fire. No, a lamp in a house window. There, it's gone. A will-o'-the-wisp by some hidden pool. It shines again. Well, Tempest sees it and believes in it."
The man lacked the animal's faith, and even when they had come to within a short distance of the glow, the clouds of vapor swept between it and them and Gaspar checked Tempest's advance. But at last a slight wind rose, and the mist which rolled toward them was tinged with the odor of smoke, so the rider knew that his first surmise had been correct.