out
into the howling, swirling blast.

She walked briskly, halting a second every time she met a man to see if
he were the object of her search and passing each time with a growing
fear, as each time she was disappointed.

At last she came to the door of the saloon where her father had so
often worse than wasted the money his family were perishing for at home.

She stopped.

She knew it was warm and light inside. Perhaps her father had just
stepped inside to get warm. Should she look?

While she stood shivering in the wind, getting her courage up to the
point of entering, a man passed her and went in. As he went through the
door a familiar voice greeted her ear, a voice she well knew and had
learned to fear.

She did not hesitate longer. Opening the door she walked swiftly and
noiselessly in. For a moment the air seemed to stagger her, so laden was
it with the fumes of liquor and tobacco. There was a crowd around the
bar and the bartender was busy mixing drinks and jingling glasses.

She saw her father. He was about two-thirds drunk and she knew, poor
child, that she had found him at his worst. Her courage almost failed
her, and she took an involuntary step toward the door. Her father's
voice arrested her.

"Here it goes, and it's my last. Now, who can say Dam Crow has not done
the square thing?" And with the words he flung a silver dollar on the
bar. His last had joined his first. All had gone into the same coffer
while an innocent wife and helpless children were starving and freezing
at home.

A pair of hungry, pleading blue eyes came like a vision to Maggie.
Before the ring of the silver had died away, she sprang forward like a
tiger and seized the dollar.

"Thief! thief!" cried a chorus of voices and two or three seized her.

"By the Lord, it's Mag! my Mag! Give that money where it belongs, and
tell what brings you here, you huzzy," and Damon Crowley seized his
daughter by the shoulder and shook her savagely.

"I will give it where it belongs, and that will be to mother. I came
here for you, father. Mother is sick and cold and nearly starved. The
children are all crying for something to eat and the coal is gone; and
this is the last?"

She opened her hand and looked at the dollar. Damon Crowley reached for
it, but quick as a flash she closed her fingers over it and thrust her
hand behind her.

"Never," she said firmly. "This is the last. It shall be ours to buy
mother some tea and the children som