midnight
We 'll just stake off this claim and take possession . ' `` After a moment of thought , however , he added provisionally : '' ` That is , until another cyclone takes a notion to move us . ' '' CHAPTER VII . -LSB- Illustration -RSB- Across the purple prairie , the wondering stars blinking down upon him , the wind tearing at him to know what the matter was , the tumbleweeds tumbling at the heels of his broncho , his heart in his mouth , Seth madly rode in the wild midnight to fetch the weazened old woman who tended the women of the desert , rode as madly back again , leaving the midwife to follow . After an age , it seemed to him , she came , and the child was born . Seth knelt and listened to the breathing of the little creature in the rapture felt by most mothers of newborn babes and by more fathers than is supposed . Now and again this feeling , which more than any other goes to make us akin to the angels , is lacking in a mother .