ce.

"I'm dying! Oh, Katie, it's so dreadful all alone there. Will you go and
bring Will to me? Oh, do."

Katrine looked down upon her as she tried to raise her to her feet. The
fire was still burning brightly and filled the room with light. Many
people older than Katrine would have laughed at the woman's statement in
face of her ability to come to them and make it, but Katrine's keen
perceptions read much, too much, in the bright glazed eyes that looked
up at her, in the hoarse grating tones that came from the sunken chest,
and the feverish grasp of those burning fingers. She stooped down and
put her arms round the kneeling figure and drew her up.

"Why, of course I will. I will bring him to you. But you are only ill,
dear; you're not dying."

"Oh, I may not, I know; but if I should, and he not here! Katie, can you
go now?--it's so late, and so cold, and so far. I don't see how you
can."

"He's working up on Mr. Wood's claim at the west gulch. I suppose if I
go to Mr. Wood's cabin he can tell me where to find Will."

"Oh, yes, yes," returned Annie, eagerly, a crimson flush now lighting up
each cheek; "go straight to Mr. Wood and ask him for Will. One of Will's
ponies is down here, back of our house; you can take him and ride up.
Oh, it may kill you to go; I ought not to ask it. Oh, what shall I do?"

Katrine laughed. "Kill me!" she said. "It would take more to kill me
than that, I think. I shall be up there and Will down here before you
know where you are. Now you've just got to drink this brandy while I go
and get some things on. You're just fretting for Will, that's what is
the matter with you. I believe you will feel all right when you see him
again."

She put the trembling woman into a chair, and went back to her room to
put her clothes on. She noticed that her boots, which had been damp the
night before, had frozen to the ground, and she had to break them from
it by force.

"I shall be lucky if I get back with my feet unfrozen," she thought to
herself, looking regretfully at the warm bed she had left; but it never
once, even remotely, occurred to her to refuse the unwelcome mission.
She put on all her thickest garments, buckled her pistols on her hip,
and went back to Annie, who was crouching over the fire in the next
room.

"I had better take the pony," she said; "he'll get me there and back
quicker than I can walk, if you think the little animal is up to it."

Annie nodded. "He's well fed," she sai