lept, so she was expecting to be wafted before
her son got home, when Kate arrived in time to save her from Heaven.
The signor volunteers to make fire and cook grub while Kate fed and
watered the team, so my wife has the pleasure of chopping out a
five-foot well at Bent Creek, while this unselfish cavalierio stayed in
the house and got warm. Naturally he didn't know enough to light the
stove, until the widow threw things, and he got the coal-oil. Then he
disremembered how to soak the kindlings before he struck a match, so he
lit the fuel first, then stood over pouring oil from the five-gallon
can. When the fire lep' up into the can, of course he had to let go, and
when he seen the cabin all in flames, he galloped off to the woods,
leaving the Widow O'Flynn to burn comfy all by herself.

By the time Kate reaches the cabin, the open door is all flames; but,
having the ice ax, she runs to the gable end, and hacks in through the
window. The bed's burning quite brisk by then, but the widow has quit
out, climbed to the window and gone to sleep with the smoke, so that
Kate climbs in and alights on top of her sudden. The fire catches hold
of my wife, but she swings the widow through the window, climbs out,
lights on top of her again, then takes a roll in the snow.

When the illustrious comes out of the woods to explain, d'ye think she'd
listen? I can just see him explaining with dago English, paws,
shoulders, and eyes. She leaves him explaining in front of the burning
cabin. Three days from now young O'Flynn will ride home with his
mother's limb tied to the saddle strings, and if the swine's alive then,
he'll begin explaining again, though Billy's quick and fretful with his
gun.

My wife humped this widow to the barn, and got warm clothes from her
trunks for both of them. She fired out her baggage and the puppy piano,
bedded down the widow in clean hay, hitched up the team, and hit the
trail for home.

She hadn't a mile to go before she met me, and what with the smoke from
O'Flynn's, the widow in the rig, and the complete absence of the swine,
I'd added up before she reined her team. She would want to cry in my
arms.

So she's in bed here, her burns dressed with oil from a bear who held me
up once on the Sky-line trail. It's good oil. The widow's asleep in my
cabin, and I'm right to home with this letter wrote to you, Mother. I
guess you know, Mummy, why me and my pipe and my dog are welcome now,
which you've lived in you