ill, and I'll fight like one, too," says she, while her eyes
burned like faggots. "They've torn away the reward of years of work
and agony, and they forget I can hate like a man."

She was stretched up to high C, where her voice drowned the howl of
the storm, and her seamed old face was a sight. I've seen mild,
shrinky, mouse-shy women 'roused to hell's own fury, and I felt that
night that here was a bad enemy for the Swedes of Buster Creek.

She stopped, listening.

"What's that? There's some one at the door."

"Nonsense," says one of the freighters. "You do so much knocking you
can hear the echo."

"There's some one at that door," says she.

"If there was, they'd come in," says Joe.

"Couldn't be, this late in this storm," I adds.

She came from behind the stove, and we let her go to the door alone.
Nobody ever seemed to do any favours for Annie Black.

"She'll be seein' things next," says Joe, winking. "What'd I tell
you? For God's sake close it--you'll freeze us."

Annie opened the door, and was hid to the waist in a cloud of steam
that rolled in out of the blackness. She peered out for a minute,
stooped, and tugged at something in the dark. I was at her side in a
jump, and we dragged him in, snow-covered and senseless.

"Quick--brandy," says she, slashing at his stiff "mukluks." "Joe,
bring in a tub of snow." Her voice was steel sharp.

"Well, I'm danged," says the mail man. "It's only an Injun. You
needn't go crazy like he was a white."

"Oh, you _fool_" says Annie. "Can't you see? Esquimaux don't travel
alone. There's white men behind, and God help them if we don't bring
him to."

She knew more about rescustications than us, and we did what she
said, till at last he came out of it, groaning--just plumb wore out
and numb.

"Talk to him, Joe; you savvy their noise," says I.

The poor devil showed his excitement, dead as he was.

"There's two men on the big 'Cut-off,'" Joe translates. "Lost on the
portage. There was only one robe between 'em, so they rolled up in
it, and the boy came on in the dark. Says they can't last till
morning."

"That lets them out," says the mail carrier. "Too bad we can't reach
them to-night."

"What!" snaps Annie. "Reach 'em? Huh! I said you were a jellyfish.
Hurry up and get your things on, boys."

"Have a little sense," says Joe. "You surely ain't a darn fool. Out
in this storm, dark as the inside of a cow; blowin' forty mile, and
the 'qu