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"A baby?"

"Sure I suppose it was the washerwoman's kid When we flushed her she probably varass Anyhow, it let up an awful holler"

Jacket and the other loot-laden soldiers had been sent on ahead, together with those troopers ere sharingperhaps two miles from town for their companions to overtake them As the column came up and halted, O'Reilly addressed a remark to Leslie Branch, but in the middle of it the faint, unmistakable complaint of a child came to his ears

"Listen!" he exclai," Branch said "I--I thought I had the willies"

The nearest riders abruptly ceased their chatter; they questioned one another ain came that thin, muffled wail, whereupon O'Reilly cried in astonishment: "Leslie! Why, it--it's in YOUR BUNDLE!" He pointed to the for from his friend's saddle-horn

"G'wan! You're crazy!" Branch slipped to the ground, seized the bundle in his ared at the knotted corners of the coination!" hein here but bedclothes I just grabbed an ar into the air as if his exploring fingers had encountered a coiled serpent "Oh, ht "Johnnie! Look! It's ALIVE!"

"What's alive? What is it?"

With a sudden desperate courage Branch bent forward and spread out the bedding There, exposed to the bulging eyes of the onlookers, was a very tiny, very brown baby It was a young baby; it was quite naked Its eyes, exposed to the sudden glare of the htly; one small hand all but lost itself in the wide, toothless cavity that served as a mouth Its ten ridiculous toes curled and uncurled in a hast "It's just b-born! Its eyes aren't open"

The Cubans, who had momentarily been stricken dumb with amazement, suddenly broke into voluble speech The cla past

"What's thewhich had formed about El De himself out of his saddle "Whose baby is that?" he demanded

"I--I--Why, it's lued upon the child in horrified fascination He choked and stammered and waved his hands impotently