s together till the station rang with the
solemn choiring.

"Dill" came in now, bringing his own knife for breakfast, and a very
cheery face under his coonskin cap and red handkerchief, and when the
"short eating" was disposed of all three men took their axes to chop up
a tree for fuel, close outside the stockade, for the great
chimney-places had capacious maws, and the weather was fast hardening to
a freeze.

Presently Odalie heard the quick strokes of their axes, alternating
with sharp clangs, the blows ringing out briskly on the icy air. The
house was very still. Fifine had fallen asleep on the rug before the
fire, having peevishly declined the folly of being disrobed and put to
bed in the daytime, to recuperate from the exhaustion attendant upon her
first ball. As she could not stay awake without whimpering, Odalie saw
with satisfaction her little distorted countenance, round head, and
chubby body collapse on the opposite side of the fireplace. Odalie
herself sat down to rest for one moment on the befrilled block of wood
which she complimented by calling a _tabouret_. Once she roused herself,
smoothed out the expanse of her white apron over her blue homespun
dress, then careful to permit the attitude to foster no crumple in her
stiff, sheer, white mob-cap on the lustrous folds of dark hair, she
leaned her head against the rude chimney.

How long she sat there she did not know. While sleeping she saw the
faces of Indians, and when she gradually woke she thought she still
slept. For there beside the fire were the Indian faces of her dream! She
was stifled and dumbly sought to cry out, for this was surely some
terror of the nightmare. But no! without was the light of the wan wintry
day, showing in a vague blear at the half-open door, and within, the
dull glow of the fire, sunken now to a vermilion mass of embers. On the
opposite side of the hearth lay Fifine on the rug, sleeping still, with
the sleeping cat in her arms--and between were Indian faces, the Indian
faces of her dream!

Odalie breathed more freely, for they were women's faces--two women,
muffled to the ears in red blankets, were calmly seated on the rug
before the fire as if they had long been there gazing at her with blank,
expressionless faces. She still heard the regular strokes of the axes of
the men of the station, as just outside the stockade they resolutely
pursued the chopping of the tree. She could not understand how the two
women, unobserved