"Hey? Well, yes! Just my view, Sukey. Yes, old girl, Alaska's a funny kind o' place for you and me to be in, isn't it? Hey? Ye-e-yes." And he stroked the cow and sniffed back the salt water, and called out, seeing the Boy, "Look! They've got a thoroughbred bull, too, an' a heifer. Lord, I haven't been in any place so like home for a coon's age! You go and look at the caches. I'll stay here while Sambo milks her."
"My name is Sebastian."
"Oh, all right; reckon you can milk her under that name, too."
When they came back, the Colonel was still there exchanging views about Alaska with Sukey, and with Sebastian about the bull. Sister Winifred came hurrying over the snow to the cow-house with a little tin pail in her hand.
"Ah, but you are slow, Sebastian!" she called out almost petulantly. "Good-morning," she said to the others, and with a quick clutch at a respectful and submissive demeanour, she added, half aside: "What do you think, Father Brachet? They forgot that baby because he is good and sleeps late. They drink up all the milk."
"Ah, there is very little now."
"Very little, Father," said Sebastian, returning to the task from which the Colonel's conversation had diverted him.
"I put aside some last night, and they used it. I send you to bring me only a little drop"—she was by Sebastian now, holding out the small pail, unmindful of the others, who were talking stock—"and you stay, and stay—"
"Give me your can." The Boy took it from her, and held it inside the big milk-pail, so that the thin stream struck it sharply.
"There; it is enough."