e women have need of you right here. I'm keeping you
on this mountain at my valuation, not yours. I have need of you, and
your past is not to intrude in this place, and when you go out in the
world again, as you will, when the right time comes, you'll know how
to meet--and face--your life--or death, as a man should.

"Hold yourself with a firm hand, and do the work of the days as they
come. It's all the Lord gives us to do at any time. If I only had
books--now,--they would help us,--but where to get them--or how? We'll
even go and ask the women, as you advise."

They all ate together in the little cabin, as was their habit, a meal
prepared by Amalia, and carefully set out with all the dishes the
cabin afforded: so few that there were not enough to serve all at
once, but eked out by wooden blocks, and small lace serviettes taken
from Amalia's store of linen. At noon one day Larry Kildene spoke his
anxieties for their welfare, and cleverly managed to make the theme a
gay one.

"Where's the use in adopting a family if you don't get society out of
them? The question I ask is, when the winter shuts us in, what are we
going to do for sport--work--what you will? It's indoor sport I'm
meaning, for Harry and I have the hunting and providing in the
daytime. No, never you ask me what I was doing before you came. I was
my own master then--"

"And now you are ours? That is good, Sir Kildene. You have to say
what to do, and me, I accept to do what you advise. Is not?"

Amalia turned to Larry and smiled, and whenever Amalia smiled, her
mother would smile also, and nod her head as if to approve, although
she usually sat in silence.

"Yours to command," said Larry, bowing.

"He's master of us all, but it's yours to direct, Lady Amalia."

"Oh, me, Mr. 'Arry. It is better for me I make for you both sufficient
to eat, so all goes well. I think I have heard men are always pleased
of much that is excellent to eat and drink."

"Now, listen. We have only a short time before the heavy snows will
come down on us, and then there will be no chance whatever to get
supplies of any sort before spring. How far is the road completed now,
Harry?"

"It should be well past Cheyenne by now. They must be working toward
Laramie rapidly. If--if--you think best, I will go down and get
supplies--whatever can be found there."

"No. I have a plan. There's enough for one man to do here finishing
the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well b