"That is their only chance. We are bound to take the risk. We must do our best to get them to the Sisters as quickly as possible. Women know better than doctors how to take care of babies. What is there to put round them—to wrap them in?"
There were no wrappings, nothing that could be used for the purpose, except the bed covers and Toby's blanket. The men took these and with awkward tenderness covered the helpless, limp little bodies as well as they could. Father Orin then went out of the cabin, and with a nod summoned Toby to do his part. When the priest was seated in the saddle, the doctor turned back to the bed, and lifting one of the three limp little burdens, carried it out and carefully placed it in Father Orin's arms.
"But you can't carry both of the others," said the priest, in sudden perplexity. "And we can't leave one here alone while we take the others and return. Maybe it would be better to take one at a time. I can either stay or go."
"Oh, no, indeed! I can take these two easy enough—one on each arm. They weigh nothing—poor little atoms—and I don't need a hand for the reins. My horse often goes in a run with them thrown over the pommel. He went on a bee-line with them so last night."
With both arms thus filled with the helpless morsels of humanity, he had no trouble in seating himself in the saddle. He laughed a little, thinking what a spectacle they must make; and Father Orin laughed too, with the shamefacedness that the best men feel when they do such gentle things. And then the strange, pathetic journey through the wilderness began.
[Illustration: Father Orin and Toby.]
"Steady, Toby. That's right, old man," said the priest, now and then.
The doctor kept a close, anxious watch over the child in Father Orin's arms, and frequently glanced down at the two little faces lying in the hollow of his own arms. Any one of the three,—or all of them—might cease to breathe at any moment. It seemed to both the anxious men that they were a long time in going to the Sisters' house, although the distance was but a few miles. When the log refuge first came in sight through the trees, they breathed a deep sigh of relief in the same breath. The Sisters, who had been warned, saw them coming, and ran to meet them, and took the babies from their arms. When the little ones had been borne in the house and put to bed, the doctor sat down beside them to see what more might be done. But the priest, without rest or delay, set out on another errand of mercy. Toby, needing no word or hint, at once quickened his pace, knowing full well the difference between this business and that which was just finished, so far as they were responsible.
"You're right, old man. Keep us up to the mark, right up to the mark," chuckled Father Orin. "I'm mighty tired, and I'm afraid I might shirk if you would let me."
As he bent down with a bantering chuckle to pat the horse's inflexible neck, a man's voice suddenly hailed them from the darkening woods lying at their back.