ler went to town this morning to get coal for us."

"But he can't get back until the storm is over. How you goin' to manage?
No fire in your shack? No fuel for the monkey-stove?"

"We'll be all right," we assured him. He was not convinced, but he dared
not linger. He had to get home while he could still find the way.

In thirty minutes we were completely shut in by the lashing force of
wind and snow that swept across the plains in a blinding rage. Ma Wagor
and Kathryn, our typesetter, had gone home and we were alone, Ida Mary
and I. We built up a hot fire in the monkey-stove, which sat in the
middle of the store building and was used for heating both store and
print shop. From canned goods on the shelf, baked beans and corned beef,
we prepared a sketchy supper, and ate on the counter.

Although it had been without heat only a few hours, the shack was
already like an iceberg, and we were shaking with cold by the time we
managed to drag the couch out of it, with a mighty effort, and into the
store. It was warm there, and we lay safe under warm blankets listening
tranquilly to the storm hurling its strength furiously against the frail
defense of the little store, the shriek of the wind, the beating of the
snow on the roof. It must be horrible to be out in it, we thought,
pleasantly aware of protection and warmth and safety.

Next morning there was a real old-time blizzard raging. We could barely
see the outline of the shack ten feet from the store; the rest of the
world was blotted out and the wind roared like an incoming tide as the
snow and sleet pelted like shot on the low roof. A primeval force drove
the storm before it. All over the plains people were hemmed in tar-paper
shacks, the world diminished for them to the dimensions of their
thin-walled houses, as alone as though each were the only dweller on the
prairie.

The team, Fan and Bill, and Lakota were the only horses tied up in the
hay barn. They could reach the hay and eat snow for water. There would
be plenty of snow. Our menagerie of Indian plugs, including Pinto, was
loose on the plains; but they were accustomed to battling storms in the
open and there were haystacks now to provide food and shelter.
Somewhere in the open they were standing, huddled together, facing the
onslaught of the storm.

The west end wall of the flimsy ell print shop, exposed to the full
force of the storm, was swaying in. Together we dragged forth some boxes
of canned goods, heav