d.

Sheila and Miss Blake gave them what food they would have eaten
themselves that day. It served only to excite their restlessness, to hold
them there at the crack of the door, snuffling and slobbering. The outer
circle slept, the inner watched. Then they would shift, like sentries.
They had a horrible sort of system. Most of that dreadful afternoon Miss
Blake paced the floor, trying to strengthen her ankle for the trip to the
post-office. At sunset, when the small snow-banked room was nearly dark,
she stopped, threw up her head, and looked at Sheila. The girl was
sitting on the lowest step of the ladder washing some dried apples. Her
face had thinned to a silvery wedge between the thick square masses of
her hair. There was a haunted look in her clear eyes. The soft mouth had
tightened.

"How in God's name," said Miss Blake, "shall I get 'em on their
chains again?"

Sheila stopped her work, and her lips fell helplessly apart. She looked
up at the older woman and shook her head.

Miss Blake's fear snapped into a sort of frenzy. She gritted her teeth
and stamped. "You simpleton!" she said. "You never have a notion in
your head."

Sheila stood up quickly. Something told her that she had better be on her
feet. She kept very still. "You will know better than I could what to do
about the dogs," she said quietly. "They'll go back on their chains for
you, I should think. They're afraid of you."

"Aren't you?" Miss Blake asked roughly.

"No. Of course not."

"You little liar! You're scared half out of your wits. You're scared of
the whole thing--scared of the snow, scared of the cold, scared of the
dogs, and scared sick of me. Come, now. Tell me the truth."

It was almost her old bluff, bullying tone, but back of it was a
disorder of stretched nerves. Sheila weighed her words and tried to
weigh her thoughts.

"I don't think I am afraid, Miss Blake. Why should I be afraid of the
dogs, if you aren't? And why should I be afraid of you? You have been
good to me. You are a good woman."

At this Miss Blake threw back her head and laughed. She was terribly like
one of the dogs howling. There was something wild and wolfish in her
broad neck and in the sound she made. And she snapped back into silence
with wolfish suddenness.

"If you're not scared, then," she scoffed, "go and chain up the dogs
yourself."

For an instant Sheila quite calmly balanced the danger out of doors
against the danger within.

"I think," she