for two weeks," she said, in comment on the eastern trail,
which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been less
travelled than ever. "It would be nice to have a neighbor," she added, as
she faced the west and the sinking sun again. "I get so lonely--just
minutes I get lonely. But it's them minutes that seem to count more than
all the rest when they come. I expect that's it--we don't live in months
and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an earthquake to
do its work--it's seconds then.... P'r'aps dad won't even come to-morrow,"
she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It never seemed so long
before, not even when he's been away a week." She laughed bitterly. "Even
bad company's better than no company at all. Sure. And Mickey has been
here always when dad's been away past times. Mickey was a fool, but he was
company; and mebbe he'd have been better company if he'd been more of a
scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think he would. Bad company
doesn't put you off so."

There was a scratching at the inside of the door. "My, if I didn't forget
Shako," she said, "and he dying for a run!"

She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full
breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air of
the north in every motion--like his mistress also.

"Come, Shako, a run--a run!"

An instant after she was flying off on a path toward the woods, her short
skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those of any
woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for she was
a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and fed on its
scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backward and forward they
ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten--she was twenty-three--her eyes
flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands thrown up in sheer
excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her face--brown, strong
hair, wavy and plentiful.

Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her hands.
The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the hands,
however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them honestly;
for her mother was descended from an old family of the French province.
That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of distinction.
It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the peasant; but
it gave her something which made her wh