ifference, and with the quiet stoical
courage of a drunken man leaned forward and wound his arms about the
horse's hind legs and held them against his breast with crushing
embrace. All through the darkness and cold of the night he lay
there, matching strength against strength. When little Jim Peterson
went over the next morning at four o'clock to go with him to the
Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was on its fore
knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story the
Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that they
feared and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses.

One spring there moved to the next "eighty" a family that made a
great change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of the
time to be afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to
be afraid of any one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their
pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about
that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he
took it alone. After a while the report spread that he was going to
marry Yensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls began to tease Lena
about the great bear she was going to keep house for. No one could
quite see how the affair had come about, for Canute's tactics of
courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never spoke to her
at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering on one side of
him and Ole drinking on the other and watch Lena at her work. She
teased him, and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in his
coffee, but he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even
smiling. He took her to church occasionally, but the most watchful
and curious people never saw him speak to her. He would sit staring
at her while she giggled and flirted with the other men.

Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She
came home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to startle
Lena with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all
the other esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks
Lena's head was completely turned, and she gave her father no rest
until he let her go to town to seek her fortune at the ironing
board. From the time she came home on her first visit she began to
treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a plush cloak and kid
gloves, had her clothes made by the dress-maker, and assumed airs
and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood c