Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

Just outside the tent, between it and the tent next to it, stood a great pine-tree, the only tree among the tents. Many a time had it been suggested to cut down this tree for firewood, but David had prevented it. 'Wait,' he had said, 'until we want it; when firewood runs short, and we can't get it elsewhere, it will be time enough.' So the tree had been saved from the axe, and stood there like a giant, defying the storm, Saul piled up the rough seats and the tables which comprised the furniture of the tent, and climbing to the top of them, cut a great hole in the roof of the tent. It was daylight above, and the snow was falling fast Saul saw the noble tree standing fast and firm in the midst of the storm. With a desperate leap he caught a branch, and raised himself above the tent. And when he looked upon the awful scene, upon the cruel white snow in which the tents all around him were embedded, and nearly buried, his heart throbbed despairingly.

But this was no time for despair. It was the time for action. When he had secured his position in the tree, he stooped over the tent.

'David!' he cried. David's voice answered him.

'This is our only chance,' he said loudly; he spoke slowly and distinctly, so that those within the tent might hear him. 'Here we maybe able to find safety until the storm abates and the snow subsides. Listen to me, and do exactly as I say. Get some provisions together and some water; and the little brandy that is left. Make them up in a bundle. Tie rope and cord round it, and let me have it. Quickly!'

Before he finished speaking, David's wife was busy attending to his instructions.

'Answer me, Saul,' cried David. 'What do you see of our mates?'

Saul groaned, 'Do not ask me, David! Let us thank God that this tree was left standing.'

David climbed on to the table in a few minutes, with the bundle of provisions in his hands. He was lifting it for Saul to take hold when the pile upon which he was standing gave way, and he fell heavily to the ground.

At this moment, a movement in the tent nearest to the tree arrested Saul's attention. One of the men inside had thought also of the tree, and had adopted Saul's expedient of cutting through the roof of the tent. His head now appeared above the rent. He saw Saul, but he was too far away to reach the tree.

'Give me a hand, mate!' he cried. 'Give me a hand, for God's sake!'

'One moment,' replied Saul, deeply anxious for the fate of David, for he heard the generous-hearted digger groan, and heard David's wife sobbing. 'Keep your hold and stand firm for a little while. You are safe there for a time. There is something here in my own tent I must see to at once.' Then he called, 'David! David! Are you hurt?'

The voice of David's wife answered him with sobs and cries. 'He can't move, Saul! He can't move! O, my poor dear David! He has broken his leg, he says, and his back is hurt. What shall I do? O, what shall I do?'

But although she asked this question, she-true wife and woman as she was-was attending to the sufferer, not thinking of herself.

'God pity us!' groaned Saul, and raised his hand to the storm. 'Pity us! pity us! he cried.

But the pitiless snow fell, and the soft flakes danced in the air.

Then Saul cried, 'David's wife! The child! the child!'

'Let me be, wife,' said David; 'I am easier now. Pile up those seats again; make them firm. Don't hurry. I can wait I am in no pain. Lift our little daughter to Saul, and the provisions afterwards.'

She obeyed him; she piled the seats one above another. Then brought the child to David. He took her in his arms, and kissed her again and again.'

'My pet! my darling!' he moaned. 'Kiss father, little one!'

And the rough man pressed this link of love to his heart, and kissed her face, her hands, her neck, her lips.

'Now, wife,' he said, and resigned their child to her. David's wife stood silent for a few moments with the child in her arms, and murmured a prayer over her, and blessed her, and then, keeping down her awful grief bravely like a brave woman, climbed to the height, and raised her arms to Saul with the child in them. Only her bare arms could be seen above the tent's roof.

'Come, little one,' said Saul, and stooping down, at the risk of his life, clutched the child from the mother's arms, and heard the mother's heart-broken sobs.

'Is she safe, Saul?'

'She is safe, dear woman.'

Other heads rose from other tents and turned despairingly about. But no help for them was near. They were in their grave.

David's wife raised the provisions to Saul, and went down to her husband.

'Wife,' said David, 'leave me, and see if you can reach Saul. It will be difficult, but you may be able to manage it.'

She looked at him tenderly.

'My place is here, David,' she said; 'I shall stay with you, and trust to God. Our child is safe, in the care of a good man.'

He tried to persuade her, but she shook her head sweetly and sadly, and simply said, 'I know my duty.' He could say no more, for the next moment he swooned, his pain was so great. Then his wife knelt by him, and raised his head upon her lap.

Meanwhile, the man in the next tent who had called to Saul to give him a hand had not been idle. He found a plank and was raising it to the roof, with the purpose of resting it upon a branch of the tree. As with more than a man's strength he lifted the plank forward, Saul heard a thud beneath him, and looking down saw that the walls of the tent in which David and his wife were had given way, and that the snow was toppling over. He turned his head; he was powerless to help them. The tears ran down his face and beard, and he waited, awe-struck by the terror of the time. He thought he heard the voice of David's wife cry,

'Good-bye, my child! God preserve you!'

In a choking voice, he said solemnly to David's little daughter,

'Say, God bless you, mother and father!'

'The child repeated the words in a whisper, and nestled closer to Saul, and said,

'I'm so cold! Where's mother and father? Why don't they come up?

Saul, with a shiver, looked down. Nothing of David or of David's wife did he see. The tent was not in sight. The snow had covered it. And still it fell, and still it drifted.

The digger who occupied the next tent had fined his plank; not a moment was to be lost; his tent was cracking. Creeping along the plank, with the nervous strength of desperation, clinging to it like a cat, he reached the tree and was saved for a time. As he reached it, the plank slipped into the snow. And still it fell, and rose higher and higher. Men signalled to each other from tent to tent, and bade God bless each other, for they felt that, unless the snowdrift and snowfall should instantly cease, there was no hope for them. But still it fell; fell softly into the holes in the canvas roofs and sides, into the chambers below; crept up to them inch by inch; wrapt yellow gold and mortal flesh in soft shrouds of white, and hid the adventurers from the light of day.

Only three remained. Soul, and David's little daughter, in the uppermost branches of the tree. The digger from the nearest tent clinging to a lower branch.

This man was known by the name of Edward Beaver; a silent man at best, and one who could not win confidence readily. His face was covered with hair fast turning gray. Between him and Saul but little intercourse had taken place. Saul had not been attracted by Beaver's manner, although often when he looked at the man, a strange impression came upon him that he knew the face. Saul spoke to Beaver once, and asked him where he cane from; but Beaver answered him roughly, and Saul spoke to him no more. In this dread time, however, Beaver's tongue was loosened.

'This is awful,' he said, looking up at Saul.

Saul looked down upon the white face which was upturned to his, and the same strange impression of its being familiar to him stole upon him like a subtle vapour. An agonising fear was expressed in Beaver's countenance; he was frightened of death. He was weak, too, having just come out of a low fever, and it needed all his strength to keep his footing on the tree.

'Do you think we shall die here?' he asked.

'I see no hope,' replied Saul, pressing David's little daughter to his breast. The child had fallen to sleep. Saul's soul was too much troubled for converse, and the morning passed almost in silence. Saul lowered some food and drink to Beaver. 'I have very little brandy,' he said; 'but you shall share and share.' And when Beaver begged for more, he said, 'No, not yet; I must husband it. Remember, I have another life here in my arms to care for.'

The day advanced, and the storm continued; not a trace of the tents or of those who lay buried in them could be seen. The cruel white snow had made a churchyard of the golden gully!

Night fell, and brought darkness with it; and in the darkness Saul shuddered, with a new and sudden fear, for he felt something creeping up to him. It was Beaver's voice creeping up the tree, like an awful shadow.

'Saul Fielding,' it said, 'my time has come. The branches are giving way, and I am too weak to hold on.'

'God help you, Edward Beaver,' said Saul pityingly.

And David's little daughter murmured in her sleep, 'What's that, mother?' Saul hushed her by singing in a soft tender voice a nursery rhyme, and the child smiled in the dark, and her arms tightened round Saul's neck. It was a good thing for them that they were together; the warmth of their bodies was a comfort, and in some measure a safeguard to them.

When Saul's soft singing was over, he heard Beaver sobbing, beneath him. 'I used to sing that once,' the man sobbed in weak tones, 'to my little daughter.'