the head of the stairs. "There's no
danger of the steers getting snowed under along the creek, is
there?" she asked anxiously.

"No, I thought of that. We've driven them all into the little
corral on the level, and shut the gates. It's over my head down
in the creek bottom now. I haven't a dry stitch on me. I guess
I'll follow Mahailey's advice and get in the tub, if you can wait
supper for me."

"Put your clothes outside the bathroom door, and I'll see to
drying them for you."

"Yes, please. I'll need them tomorrow. I don't want to spoil my
new corduroys. And, Mother, see if you can make Dan change. He's
too wet and steamy to sit at the table with. Tell him if anybody
has to go out after supper, I'll go."

Mrs. Wheeler hurried down stairs. Dan, she knew, would rather sit
all evening in wet clothes than take the trouble to put on dry
ones. He tried to sneak past her to his own quarters behind the
wash-room, and looked aggrieved when he heard her message.

"I ain't got no other outside clothes, except my Sunday ones," he
objected.

"Well, Claude says he'll go out if anybody has to. I guess you'll
have to change for once, Dan, or go to bed without your supper."
She laughed quietly at his dejected expression as he slunk away.

"Mrs. Wheeler," Mahailey whispered, "can't I run down to the
cellar an' git some of them nice strawberry preserves? Mr.
Claude, he loves 'em on his hot biscuit. He don't eat the honey
no more; he's got tired of it."

"Very well. I'll make the coffee good and strong; that will
please him more than anything."

Claude came down feeling clean and warm and hungry. As he opened
the stair door he sniffed the coffee and frying ham, and when
Mahailey bent over the oven the warm smell of browning biscuit
rushed out with the heat. These combined odours somewhat
dispersed Dan's gloom when he came back in squeaky Sunday shoes
and a bunglesome cut-away coat. The latter was not required of
him, but he wore it for revenge.

During supper Mrs. Wheeler told them once again how, long ago
when she was first married, there were no roads or fences west of
Frankfort. One winter night she sat on the roof of their first
dugout nearly all night, holding up a lantern tied to a pole to
guide Mr. Wheeler home through a snowstorm like this.

Mahailey, moving about the stove, watched over the group at the
table. She liked to see the men fill themselves with food-though
she did not count Dan a man, by any means, a