oks made a fair show beside the bright tins and
the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and wapiti
made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It was a
place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the girl's
dress, though plain, was made of good, sound stuff, gray, with a touch of
dark red to match the auburn of her hair.

A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. She had
put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her thoughts
off into a world where her life had played a part too big for books, too
deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through the storm of
life's trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is bitter with an
agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself.

"She knows now! Now she knows what it is, how it feels--your heart like
red-hot coals, and something in your head that's like a turnscrew, and you
want to die and can't, for you've got to live and suffer!"

Again she was quiet, and only the dog's heavy breathing, the snap of the
fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence.
Inside it was warm and bright and homelike; outside it was twenty degrees
below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was congealed, and
only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, lived--a life of
sharp corrosion, not of fire.

Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None but
those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so sensitive
to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole nature getting
the vibration. You could have heard nothing, had you been there; none but
one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But the dog and the
woman felt, and both strained toward the window. Again they heard, and
started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still you could not have
heard; but now they heard clearly--a cry in the night, a cry of pain and
despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled aside the bearskin curtain
which had completely shut out the light. Then she stirred the fire, threw
a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily put on her moccasins, fur
coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the door quickly, the dog at her
heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the night.

"_Qui va la?_ Who is it? Where?" she called, and strained toward the west.
She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hi