fast
falling snow to her wagon.

Kate dozed towards morning after a sleepless night of wretchedness and
was awakened by a horse's whinny. Listening a moment, she sprang out
and looked through the upper half of the door which opened on hinges. It
was a white world that she saw, with some four inches of snow on the
level, though the fall had ceased and it was colder. Mormon Joe, dressed
warmly in leather "chaps" and sheep-lined coat, was riding away on one
of the work horses.

Never since they had been together had he gone to Prouty without some
word of farewell--careless and casual, but unfailing. Nor could she
remember when he had not turned in the saddle and waved at her before
they lost sight of each other altogether. This time she waited vainly.
He went without looking behind him, while she stood in the cold watching
his peaked high-crowned hat bobbing through the giant sagebrush until it
vanished. She had thrust out a hand to detain him--to call after
him--and had withdrawn it. Her pride would not yet permit her to act as
her heart prompted.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAN OF MYSTERY

The cold that dried the new-fallen snow to powder sent the mercury down
until it broke all records.

While the improvident did, indeed, wonder what they had done with their
summer wages, the thrifty contemplated their piles of wood and their
winter vegetables with a strong feeling of satisfaction.

Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were "ga'nted considerably," and in
their usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger of
freezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging a
mounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a "surface
blossom," which was being exploited by the _Grit_ as one of the
country's resources.

Vastly delighted with his bargain, until he discovered that he no sooner
had arrived from the coalhouse with a bucket of coal than it was
necessary for him to make a return trip with a bucket of ashes, Toomey
now hurled anathemas upon the embryo coal baron. It was not empty
verbiage when he asserted that, by spring, at the rate he was wearing a
trench to the ash can, nothing but the top of his head would be visible.

Mrs. Toomey, however, was grateful, for she felt that if there was one
thing worse than being hungry it was being cold, so she stoked the
kitchen range with a free hand and luxuriated in the warmth though it
necessitated frequent trips outside in Toomey's a