"Why, she's out in the yard, Hec'!"—MacFarlane's jaw had dropped. "You're—you're not—going?"
"You fool," Hector flashed. "Certainly I'm going!"
In the yard he found her—haggard, worn out, snow-encrusted, terrible.
"Moon!" he gasped, pity and horror in his voice.
"My father—" she answered dully. "He is dying."
Pleading desperately, trembling hands outstretched, she told him everything. The plague had suddenly appeared on the reserve some weeks before. Sleeping Thunder, to escape it, had taken to wandering with his band in the loneliness of the prairie; but without success. Two—three—had died. Then the chief himself had been stricken. Fear conquered loyalty, and the braves, closing their ears to the prayers of the old man and his daughter, left them to die.
"And Loud Gun?" asked Hector.
She smiled wanly.
"He was kicked by a horse long before. He was in the care of the white doctors—is still there. We were alone."
In this extremity, Sleeping Thunder had thought of Hector. By gigantic efforts Moon had grappled with the difficulties surrounding her and fought a way to Fort Macleod, her father helpless in the sledge behind her.