w."

Miss Blake flung her book down with a gesture of impatience. "Oh, quit
your nonsense, Sheila!" she said. "What's a shaking! You know you can't
get out of here. It'd take you a week to get anywhere at all except into
a frozen supper for the coyotes. Your beau's left the country--Madder
told me at the post-office. Make the best of it, Sheila. Lucky if you
don't get worse than that before spring. You'll get used to me in time,
get broken in and learn my ways. I'm not half bad, but I've got to be
obeyed. I've got to be master. That's me. What do you think I've come
'way out here to the wilderness for, if not because I can't stand
anything less than being master? Here I've got my place and my dogs and a
world that don't talk back. And now I've got you for company and to do my
work. You've got to fall into line, Sheila, right in the ranks. Once,
some one out there in the world"--she made a gesture, dropped her chin on
her big chest, and looked out under her short, dense, rust-colored
eyelashes--"tried to break _me_. I won't tell you what he got. That's
where I quit the ways of women--yes, ma'am, and the ways of men." She
stood up and walked over to the window and looked out. The dogs were
sleeping in their kennels, but a chain rattled. "I've broke the
wolf-pack. You've seen them wriggle on their bellies for me, haven't you?
Well, my girl, do you think I can't break you?" She wheeled back and
stood with her hands on her hips. It was at that moment that she seemed
to fill the world. Her ruddy eyes glowed like blood. They were not quite
sane. That was it. Sheila went suddenly weak. They were not _quite_
sane--those red eyes filled with sparks.

The girl stepped back and sat down in her chair. She bent forward,
pressed her hands flat together, palm to palm between her knees, and
stared fixedly down at them. She made no secret of her desperate
preoccupation.

Miss Blake's face softened a little at this withdrawal. She came back to
her place and resumed her spectacles.

"I'll tell you why I'm snappy," she said presently. "I'm scared."

This startled Sheila into a look. Miss Blake was moistening her lips.
"That horse--you know--the coyotes got him. I guess he went down and they
fell upon him. Well, he was to feed the dogs with until I could get my
winter meat."

"What do you mean?"

"That's what I buy 'em for. Little old horses, for a couple of bits,
and work 'em out and shoot 'em for dog-feed. Well, Sheila, when they'r