continued, but there was no sign of
abating interest or of waning devotion; rather did the religious
feeling appear to deepen as the service advanced. At length there
floated through the open window the weirdly beautiful and stately
marriage chant, in which the people joined in deep-toned guttural
fervour, then the benediction, and the ceremony was over.
Immediately there was a movement toward the cellar, where Rosenblatt,
assisted by a score of helpers, began to knock in the heads of the beer
kegs and to hand about tin cups of beer for the first drinking of the
bride's health. Beautiful indeed, in her husband's eyes and the eyes of
all who beheld her, appeared Anka as she stood with Jacob in the doorway,
radiant in the semi-barbaric splendour of her Slavonic ancestry.

This first formal health-drinking ceremony over, from within
Paulina's house and from shacks roundabout, women appeared with
pots and pails, from which, without undue haste, but without undue
delay, men filled tin cups and tin pans with stews rich, luscious,
and garlic flavoured. The feast was on; the Slav's hour of rapture
had come. From pot to keg and from keg to pot the happy crowd
would continue to pass in alternating moods of joy, until the acme
of bliss would be attained when Jacob, leading forth and up and down
his lace-decked bride, would fling the proud challenge to one and all
that his bride was the fairest and dearest of all brides ever known.

Thus with full ceremonial, with abundance of good eating,
and with multitudinous libations, Anka was wed.

CHAPTER IV

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST

The northbound train on the Northern Pacific Line was running away
behind her time. A Dakota blizzard had held her up for five hours,
and there was little chance of making time against a heavy wind
and a drifted rail. The train was crowded with passengers, all
impatient at the delay, as is usual with passengers. The most
restless, if not the most impatient, of those in the first-class
car was a foreign-looking gentleman, tall, dark, and with
military carriage. A grizzled moustache with ends waxed to a needle
point and an imperial accentuated his foreign military appearance.
At every pause the train made at the little wayside stations, this
gentleman became visibly more impatient, pulling out his watch,
consulting his time table, and cursing the delay.

Occasionally he glanced out through the window across the white
plain that stretched level to the