agreeable, and especially toward the
section-boss. He told of the Norwegian at Medicine Mountain, and of the
old man who lived with wife and children at the "little bend" up the
river; he admired the Navajo blankets, and explained their symbolic
figures of men, animals and suns; he leaned back, clasping a knee, and
branched into comical stories.

The little shack awoke to unaccustomed merriment. Lancaster warmed to
the storekeeper's genial attentions, and burst into frequent guffaws;
Dallas and Marylyn followed his every word, breaking in, from time to
time, with little gleeful laughs.

But in the midst of it, there came from outside a startling
interruption: Shouts, and a loud, pistol-like cracking, powdery swirls
over the windows, a frightened lowing, and heavy thumps against the
shack.

The noise without produced a change within. Incredibly agile, Lancaster
got to a pane. While Dallas, springing up, screened Marylyn, and waited,
as if in suspense.

Dark bulks now shot past, pursued by mounted men. And very soon the herd
was gone, and all was again quiet. Then followed a moment that was full
of embarrassment. Keenly, Lounsbury looked from father to daughter, the
one striving to assume an easy air, the other incapable of hiding alarm.
All at once, he felt certain they shared Old Michael's information. He
determined to tell them that he, too, knew what and whom they feared.

"Expecting someone, Miss Dallas?" he asked tentatively.

The section-boss hastened to answer. "Expectin' nothin'," he snapped.
Then, to cut short any further questioning, "Dallas, y' clean forgot
them mules t'-day. Lawd help us! y' goin' t' let 'em starve?"

Lounsbury sat quiet, realising that the team was but a pretext. The
elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room.
Marylyn shrank into the dusk at the hearth-side. Lancaster was hobbling
up and down, his crutch-ends digging at the packed dirt of the floor.

The storekeeper, putting aside his determination, went on as though he
had not noticed the other's attitude. "The storm was hard on the stock
last night. They must 'a' drifted thirty miles with it. Our loss is big,
likely. The punchers'll bunch everything on four hoofs and drive 'em
into the coulee. Cows'll be out of the wind there, and live on browse
till the ground clears."

But as he was talking, the section-boss made himself ready for the cold;
before he had finished, the elder man had disappeared.

Lounsbur