d dallied too long in the north whirred over the
corn-field, where the shocks were standing in long, regular lines, and
called down a last crisp good-by to the russet, plume-topped tents of
autumn's invading army.

But all the bleakness without, that November morning, could not equal
the bitterness within, though the iron tea-kettle was singing cheerily
enough over the hot coal fire in the sitting-room stove, and the
collies, to show their lazy appreciation of cozy quarters, were thumping
their tails contentedly against the rag carpet. For, with the eldest and
the youngest brothers elk-hunting beyond Fort Mandan, and the biggest
miles away at Yankton with a load of hogs, the little girl, half dazed
with anxiety, was watching, alone save for the neighbor woman, beside
the canopied bed.

Her mother's illness had come with alarming suddenness. The afternoon
before she had been apparently as well as usual, and when the little
girl went into her room for the night, was humming to herself as she
chopped up turnips for the cows. But the neighbor woman, arriving later
in quest of a start of yeast, found her lying still and speechless in
the entry, where she had been stricken at her work. Brandy had revived
her, and she had begun to recover her strength. Yet it was plain to the
neighbor woman and the little girl, no matter how much the sufferer
strove to make light of her fainting, that help was needed.

Throughout the forenoon the little girl begged hard for permission to go
to the station for the new doctor. Her mother, seeing through the
windows how sunless and blustery it was outside, entreated her to wait
until the next day, when the biggest brother would be home. But the
neighbor woman, who dreaded a second attack, at last joined her
arguments to the little girl's, dwelling upon the uncertainty of the
brother's return; and shortly after dinner the mother consented.

"If there were only some one else to send," she whispered as the little
girl bent over her for a parting embrace. "It is cold and stormy."

"It's getting colder every minute," was the answer. "If I go at all, I
must go now. I'll take the sorrel and ride fast. And I'll be back before
you know it." She kissed her mother tenderly and hastened from the
house.

When she led her horse out of the barn and mounted at a nail-keg near
the tool-house, she saw that her start had been delayed too long and
that she was threatened with a drenching. The air was rapidly g