vin'. She--" there was an
unutterable scorn in his voice, "says she won't go--says it ain't
right to sell liquor. I say she'll come with me or get out. She might
be able to earn her own livin', but she can't take the kids. Accordin'
to law, children belong to the father--ain't that right? There's a man
comin' to buy the farm--I guess he would have been out today, only for
the storm. We have the bargain made--all but the signin' up."

Mrs. Paine stood still in the middle of the floor, and listened in
terror. "A man coming to buy the farm!" Every trace of color left her
face! Maybe it was not true.

He saw the terror in her face, and followed up his advantage.

"People have to learn to do as they're told when I'm round. No one can
defy me--I'll tell you that. Every one knows me--I can be led, but I
cant be driven."

Peter Neelands had the most uncomfortable feeling he had ever known.
He was not sure whether it was his utter aversion to the man who sat
in front of the stove, boasting of his sharp dealing, or a physical
illness which affected him, but a horrible nausea came over him. His
head swam--his eardrums seemed like to burst--every bone began to
ache.

The three days that followed were like a nightmare, which even time
could never efface or rob of its horror. The fight with the storm
had proven such a shock to him that for three days a burning fever,
alternating with chills, held him in its clutches, and even when the
storm subsided kept him a prisoner sorely against his will.

In these three days, at close range, he saw something of a phase of
life he had never even guessed at. He did not know that human beings
could live in such crude conditions, without comforts, without
even necessities. It was like a bad dream--confused, humiliating,
horrible--and when on the third day he was able to get into his
clothes his one desire was to get away--and yet, to leave his kind
hostess who had so gently nursed him and cared for him, seemed like an
act of desertion.

However, when he was on his feet, though feeling much shaken, and
still a bit weak, his courage came back. Something surely could be
done to relieve conditions like this.

The snow was piled fantastically in huge mounds over the fields, and
the railway cuts would be drifted full, so no train would run for
days. But Peter felt that he could walk the distance back to town.

His host made no objection, and no offer to drive him.

In the tiny bedroom off th