The child, weak and feverish, only began to cry--a hoarse bronchial crying, which threatened to wake the baby.

He could not be stopped, so Hurd made haste to take off his own coat and boots, and then lifted the poor soul in his arms.
"You'll be quiet, Will, and go sleep, won't yer, if daddy takes keer on you ?" He wrapped his own coat round the little fellow, and lying down beside his wife, took him on his arm and drew the thin brown blankets over himself and his charge.

He himself was warm with exercise, and in a little while the huddling creatures on either side of him were warm too.
The quick, panting breath of the boy soon showed that he was asleep.

His father, too, sank almost instantly into deep gulfs of sleep.

Only the wife--nervous, overdone, and possessed by a thousand fears--lay tossing and wakeful hour after hour, while the still glory of the winter night passed by..