Like all young persons born far from war, and having no knowledge of death even in its quiet forms, he had the most powerful organic repugnance toward a corpse. He kept his eye on it as though it were a sleeping horror, likely at a sudden sound to rise and walk. More than this, there had always been something peculiarly sacred in the form of a woman, and in his calmer moments the dead mother appealed to him with irresistible power.

At last, with a sort of moan through his set teeth, he approached the bed and threw the sheet over the figure, holding it as in a sling; then, by a mighty effort, he swung it stiffly off the bed into the box.

He trembled so that he could hardly spread the remaining quilts over the dead face. The box was wide enough to receive the stiff, curved right arm, and he had nothing to do but to nail the cover on, which he did in feverish haste. Then he rose, grasped his tools, rushed outside, slammed the door, and set off in great speed across the snow, pushed on by an indescribable horror.

As he neared home, his fresh young blood a.s.serted itself more and more; but when he entered the cabin he was still trembling, and dropped into a chair like a man out of breath. At sight of the ruddy face of Anson, and with the aid of the heat and light of the familiar little room, he shook off part of his horror.

"Gi' me a cup o' coffee, Ans. I'm kind o' chilly an' tired."

Before drinking he wiped his face and washed his hands again and again at the basin in the corner, as though there were something on them which was ineffably unclean. The little one, who had been weeping again, stared at him with two big tears drying on her hollow cheeks.

"Well?" interrogated Anson.

"I nailed her up safe enough for the present. But what're we goin' to do next?"

"I can't see 's we can do anythin' as long as such weather as this lasts. It ain't safe f'r one of us to go out an' leave the other alone.

Besides, it's thirty below zero, an' no road, Moccasin's full of snow; an' another wind likely to rise at any time. It's mighty tough on this little one, but it can't be helped. As soon as it moderates a little, we'll try to find a woman an' a preacher, an' bury that--relative."

"The only woman I know of is ol' Mrs. Cap Burdon, down on the Third Moccasin, full fifteen miles away."

CHAPTER IV.

FLAXEN ADOPTS ANSON AS "PAP."

For nearly two weeks they waited, while the wind alternately raved and whispered over them as it scurried the snow south or east, or shifted to the south in the night, bringing "the north end of a south wind,"

the most intolerable and cutting of winds. Day after day the restless snow sifted or leaped across the waste of glittering crust; day after day the sun shone in dazzling splendor, but so white and cold that the thermometer still kept down among the thirties. They were absolutely alone on the plain, except that now and then a desperate wolf or inquisitive owl came by.

These were long days for the settlers. They would have been longer had it not been for little Elga, or "Flaxen," as they took to calling her.

They racked their brains to amuse her, and in the intervals of tending the cattle and of cooking, or of washing dishes, rummaged through all their books and pictures, taught her "cat's cradle," played "jack-straws" with her, and with all their resources of song and pantomime strove to fill up the little one's lonely days, happy when they succeeded in making her laugh.

"That settles it!" said Bert one day, whanging the basin back into the empty flour-barrel.

"What's the matter?"

"Matter is, we've reached the bottom o' the flour-barrel, an' it's got to be filled; no two ways about that. We can get along on biscuit an'

pancakes in place o' meat, but we can't put anythin' in the place o'

bread. If it looks favorable to-morrow, we've got to make a break for Summit an' see if we can't stock up."

Early the next morning they brought out the shivering team and piled into the box all the quilts and robes they had, and bundling little Flaxen in, started across the trackless plain toward the low line of hills to the east, twenty-five or thirty miles. From four o'clock in the morning till nearly noon they toiled across the sod, now ploughing through the deep snow where the unburned gra.s.s had held it, now sc.r.a.ping across the bare, burned earth, now wandering up or down the swales, seeking the shallowest places, now shovelling a pathway through.

The sun rose un.o.bscured as usual, and shone down with unusual warmth, which afforded the men the satisfaction of seeing little Flaxen warm and merry. She chattered away in her own tongue, and clapped her little hands in glee at sight of the s...o...b..rds running and fluttering about.

As they approached the low hills the swales got deeper and more difficult to cross, but about eleven o'clock they came to Burdon's Ranch, a sort of half-way haven between their own claim and Summit, the end of the railway.

Captain Burdon was away, but Mrs. Burdon, a big, slatternly Missourian, with all the kindliness of a universal mother in her swarthy face and flaccid bosom, ushered them into the cave-like dwelling set in the sunny side of Water Moccasin.

"Set down, set right down. Young uns, git out some o' them cheers an'

let the strangers set. Purty tol'able tough weather? A feller don't git out much such weather as this 'ere 'thout he's jes' naturally 'bleeged to. Suse, heave in another twist, an' help the little un to take off her shawl."

After Mrs. Burdon's little flurry of hospitality was over, Anson found time to tell briefly the history of the child.

"Heavens to Betsey! I wan' to know!" she cried, her fat hands on her knees and her eyes bulging. "Wal! wal! I declare, it beats the Dutch!

So that woman jest frizzed right burside the babe! Wal, I never! An'

the ol' man he ain't showed up? Wal, now, he ain't likely to. I reckon I saw that Norsk go by here that very day, an' I says to Cap'n, says I, 'If that feller don't reach home inside an hour, he'll go through heaven a-gittin' home,' says I to the Cap'n."

"Well, now," said Anson, stopping the old woman's garrulous flow, "I've got to be off f'r Summit, but I wish you'd jest look after this little one here till we git back. It's purty hard weather f'r her to be out, an' I don't think she ought to."

"Yaas; leave her, o' course. She'll enjoy playin' with the young uns. I reckon y' did all y' could for that woman. Y' can't burry her now; the ground's like link.u.m-vity."

But as Anson turned to leave, the little creature sprang up with a torrent of wild words, catching him by the coat, and pleading strenuously to go with him. Her accent was unmistakable.

"You wan' to go with Ans?" he inquired, looking down into the little tearful face with a strange stirring in his bachelor heart. "I believe on my soul she does."

"Sure's y're born!" replied Mrs. Burdon. "She'd rather go with you than to stay an' fool with the young uns; that's what she's tryin' to say."

"Do y' wan' to go?" asked Ans again, opening his arms. She sprang toward him, raising her eager little hands as high as she could, and when he lifted her she twined her arms around his neck.

"Poor little critter! she ain't got no pap ner mam now," the old woman explained to the ring of children, who still stared silently at the stranger almost without moving.

"Ain't he her pa-a-p?" drawled one of the older girls, sticking a finger at Anson.

"He is now," laughed Ans, and that settled the question over which he had been pondering for days. It meant that as long as she wanted to stay she should be his Flaxen and he would be her "pap." "And you can be Uncle Bert, hey?" he said to Bert.

"Good enough," said Bert.

CHAPTER V.

FLAXEN BECOMES INDISPENSABLE TO THE TWO OLD BACHELORS.

They never found any living relative, and only late in the spring was the fate of the poor father revealed. He and his cattle were found side by side in a deep swale, where they had foundered in the night and tempest.

As for little Flaxen, she soon recovered her cheerfulness, with the buoyancy natural to childhood, and learned to prattle in broken English very fast. She developed a st.u.r.dy self-reliance that was surprising in one so young, and long before spring came was indispensable to the two "old baches."

"Now, Bert," said Ans one day, "I don't wan' to hear you talk in that slipshod way any longer before Flaxen. You know better; you've had more chance than I have--be'n to school more. They ain't no excuse for you, not an ioty. Now, I'm goin' to say to her, 'Never mind how I talk, but talk like Bert does."

"Oh, say, now, look here, Ans, I can't stand the strain. Suppose she'd hear me swearin' at ol' Barney or the stove?"

"That's jest it. You ain't goin' to swear," decided Anson; and after that Bert took the education of the little waif in hand, for he was a man of good education; his use of dialect and slang sprang mainly from carelessness.

But all the little fatherly duties and discipline fell to Anson, and much perplexed he often got. For instance, when he bought her an outfit of American clothing at the store they were strange to her and to him, and the situation was decidedly embarra.s.sing when they came to try them.

"Now, Flaxie, I guess this thing goes on this side before, so's you can b.u.t.ton it. If it went on so, you _couldn't_ reach around to b.u.t.ton it, don't you see? I guess you'd better try it so. An' this thing, I judge, is a shirt, an' goes on under that other thing, which I reckon is called a shimmy. Say, Bert, shouldn't you call that a shirt?" holding up a garment.