"All aboard!" called Bailey, as he took his reins in hand.

A bitter blast and a gray sky confronted them as they drove out of the town, and not even Bailey's abounding vitality and good-humor could keep Blanche from sinking back into gloomy silence. The wind was keen, strong, prophetic of the snows which were already gathering far in the north, and the journey seemed endless; and when late in the afternoon they drew up before the squat, low hovel in which she was to spend a long and desolate winter, Blanche was shivering violently, and so depressed that she could not coherently thank the kindly young fellow who had afforded her this brief respite from her care. She staggered into the house, so stiff she could scarcely walk, and sank into a chair to sob out her loneliness and despair, while Willard pottered about building a fire on their icy hearth.

Willard Burke had a question to ask, and that night, as they were sitting at their poor little table, he plucked up courage to begin:

"Blanche, I want to ask you something--that is, I've been kind o'

noticin' you--" Here he paused, intending to be sly and suggestive.

"Seems to me this climate ain't so bad, after all; you complain a good deal, but seems to me you hadn't ought to." He trembled while he smiled.

"It's done a lot for you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her face flushing with confusion.

"I mean"--he tried to laugh--"your best dress seems pretty tight for you. Oh, if it only should be--"

"Don't be a fool," she angrily replied. "If anything like that happens, I'll let you know."

His face lengthened, and the smile went out of his eyes. He accepted her tone as final, too loyal to doubt her word. "Don't be mad; I was only in hopes." He rose after a silence and went out with downcast head.

She sat rigidly, feeling as if the blood were freezing in her hands and feet. The crisis was upon her. The time of her judgment was coming--and she was alone! She burned with anger against Rivers. Why had he waited and waited? "_He_ can put things off--he is a man, but I am the woman--I must suffer it all." The pain, the shame, the deadly danger--all were hers.

Burke returned, noisily, stamping his feet like a boy.

"It's snowin' like all git out," he said, "and I've got to rig up some kind of a sled. I reckon winter has come in earnest now, and our coal-pile is low."

He went to sleep with the readiness of a child, and as she lay listening to his quiet breath she remembered how easy it had once been for her to sleep. She had the same agony of pity for him that she would have felt for a child she had wronged malevolently.

The next day Mrs. Bussy came over. At her rap Blanche called, "Come in,"

but remained seated by the fire.

The old woman entered, knocking the snow off her feet like a man.

"How de do, neighbor?"

Blanche drew her shawl a little closer around her. "Not very well; sit down, won't you?"

"Can't stop. You don't seem very peart. I want to know what seems to be the trouble." Her keen eyes had never seemed so penetrating before.

Blanche flushed and moved uneasily. She was afraid of the old creature, who seemed half-man, half-woman.

"Oh, I don't know. Rheumatism, I guess."

"That so? Well, this weather is 'nough to give anybody rheumatiz. I tell Ed--that's my boy--I tell Ed we made holy fools of ourselves comin'

out here. I never see such a d.a.m.n country f'r wind." She rambled on about the weather for some time, and at last rose. "Well, I wanted to borrow your wash-boiler; mine leaks like an infernal old sieve, and I dasen't go to town to get it mended for fear of a blow. What's trouble?"

Blanche suddenly put her hand to her side and grew white and rigid. Then the blood flamed into her cheeks, and the perspiration stood out on her forehead. She clinched her lips between her teeth and lay back in her chair.

"Ye look kind o' faint. Can't I do something for ye? Got any pain-killer? That's good, well rubbed in," volunteered the old woman.

"No, no, I--I'm all right now, it was just a sharp twinge, that's all--you'll find the boiler in the shed; I don't need it." Her tone was one of dismissal.

The old woman rose. "All right, I'll find it. Set still." As she went out she grinned--a mocking, sly, aggravating grin. "It's all right--nothin' to be ashamed of. I've had ten. I called _my_ first one pleurisy. It didn't fool any one, though." She cackled and creaked with laughter as she shut the door.

Blanche sat motionless, staring straight before her, while the fire died out and the room grew cold.

Her terror and shame gave way at last, and she allowed herself to dream of the mystical joy of maternity. She permitted herself to fancy the life of a mother in a sheltered and prosperous home. She felt in imagination the touch of little lips, the thrust of little hands, the cling of little arms. "My baby should come into a lovely, sun-lit room.

It should have a warm, pretty cradle. It should--"

The door opened and her husband entered.

"Why, Blanche--what's the matter? You've let the fire go out. It's cold as blixen in here. You'll take cold, first you know."

VI

DECEMBER

Winter came late, but with a fury which appalled the strong hearts of the settlers. Most of them were from the wooded lands of the East, and the sweep of the wind across this level sod had a terror which made them quake and cower. The month of December was incredibly severe.

Day after day the thermometer fell so far below zero that no living thing moved on the wide, white waste. The snows seemed never at rest.

One storm followed another, till the drifting, icy sands were worn as fine as flour. The house was like a cave. Its windows, thick with frost, let in only a pallid light at midday. There was little for Blanche to do, and there was nothing for her to say to Willard, who came and went aimlessly between the barn and house. His poor old team could no longer face the cold wind without danger of freezing, and so he walked to the store for the mail and the groceries. They lived on boiled potatoes and bacon, suffering like prisoners--jailed innocently. He hovered about the stove, feeding it twisted bundles of hay till he grew yellow with the tanning effect of the smoke, while Blanche cowered in her chair, petulant and ungenerous.

The winter deepened. There were many days when the sun shone, but the snow slid across the plain with a menacing, hissing sound, and the sky was milky with flying frost, and the horizon looked cold and wild; but these were merely the pauses between storms. The utter dryness of the flakes and the never-resting progress of the winds kept the drifts shifting, shifting.

"This is what you've dragged me into!" Blanche burst out, one desolate day after a week's confinement to the house. "This is your fine home--this dug-out! This is the climate you bragged about. I can't stay here any longer. Oh, my G.o.d, if I was only back home again!" She rose, and walked back and forth, her shawl trailing after her. "If I'd had any word to say about it, we never'd 'a' been out in this G.o.d-forsaken country."

He bowed his head to her pa.s.sion and sat in silence, while she raged on.

"Do you know we haven't got ten pounds of flour in the house? And another blizzard likely? And no b.u.t.ter, either? What y' goin' to do? Let me starve?"

"I _did_ intend to go over to Bussy's and get back the flour they borrowed of us, but I'm a little afraid to go out to-day; it looks like another norther. The wind's rising, and old Tom--"

"But that's just the reason why you've got to go. We can't run such risks. We've got to eat or die--you ought to know that."

Burke rose, and began putting on his wraps. "I'll go over and see what I can squeeze out of old lady Bussy."

"Oh, this wind will drive me crazy!" she cried out. "Oh, I wish somebody would come!" She dropped upon the bed, sobbing with a hysterical catching of the breath. The wind was piping a high-keyed, mourning note on the chimney-top, a sound that rang echoing down through every hidden recess of her brain, shaking her, weakening her, till at last she turned upon her husband with wild eyes.

"Take me with you! I can't stay here any longer--I shall go crazy!" She turned her head to listen. "Isn't some one coming? Look out and see! I hear bells!"

Burke tried to soothe her in his timid, clumsy fashion.

"There, there, now--sit down. You ain't well, Blanche. I'll ask Mrs.

Bussy to come--"

She suddenly seemed to remember something. "Don't talk to her. Go to Craig's. Don't go to Bussy's--please don't! I hate her. I won't be in her debt."

This pleading tone puzzled him, but he promised; and, hitching up his thin, old horses, drove around to the door of the shanty. Blanche came out, dressed to go with him, but when she felt the edge of the wind she shrank. Her lips turned blue and she cowered back against the side of the cabin, holding her shawl like a shield before her bosom. "I can't do it! It's too cold! I'd freeze to death. You'll have to go alone."