the window of this lonely house, in a great lonely stretch of
country, with the cedar hills behind it, had a living force which defied
his seventy odd years, though the light in his face was hard and his
voice was harder still. Under the shelter of the foothills, cold as the
day was, his cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin
layer of snow, and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic
world in appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly
and generous--the harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was
with the old man who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer,
but that in his nature on which any one could feed was not so easily
reached as the fresh young grass under the protecting snow.

"She'll get nothing out of me," he repeated, as the others in the room
behind him made no remark, and his eyes ranged gloatingly over the
cattle under the foothills and the buildings which he had gathered
together to proclaim his substantial greatness in the West. "Not a sous
markee," he added, clinking some coins in his pocket. "She's got no
rights."

"Cassy's got as much right here as any of us, Abel, and she's coming to
say it, I guess."

The voice which spoke was unlike a Western voice. It was deep and full
and slow, with an organ-like quality. It was in good keeping with the
tall, spare body and large, fine rugged face of the woman to whom it
belonged. She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy
with the knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the home-made
hassock at her feet.

The old man waited for a minute in a painful silence, then he turned
slowly round, and, with tight-pressed lips, looked at the woman in the
rocking-chair. If it had been anyone else who had "talked back" at
him, he would have made quick work of them, for he was of that class
of tyrant who pride themselves on being self-made, and have an undue
respect for their own judgment and importance. But the woman who had
ventured to challenge his cold-blooded remarks about his dead son's
wife, now hastening over the snow to the house her husband had left
under a cloud eight years before, had no fear of him, and, maybe, no
deep regard for him. He respected her, as did all who knew her--a very
reticent, thoughtful, busy being, who had been like a well of comfort
to so many that had drunk and passed on out of her life, out of time and
time's experiences. Seventy-nine years saw h