The giant was asleep when he entered. His great, shaggy head lay beside the lamp on his crossed arms. Bert laid the letter down beside him and shook him.

"Hello! got back, hey?" the sleeper said, rousing up sluggishly. "Anything?" Then he caught sight of the letter. "Oh, bless her little heart! Wonder what it is? Picture, bet my hat!" Here he opened it.

"Gee-whittiker, thunder and turf, gosh-all—Friday!—look a-there! Ain't she growed!" he yelled, holding the picture by the corner and moving it into all sorts of positions. "That's my little girl—our Flaxen; she can't grow so purty but what I'd know her. See that hair done up on the top of her head! Look at that dress, an' the thingumajigs around her neck! Oh, she's gittin' there, Smith, hey?"

"She's changing pretty fast," said Bert listlessly.

"Changin' fast! Say, ol' man, what's the matter with you? Are y' sick?"

"I'm played out, that's all."

"Darn my skin! I should think y' would be, draggin' all day, an' then walkin' all o' four mile to the post-office. Jest lay down on the bed there, ol' boy, while I read the letter to yeh. Say, ol' man, don't you git up in the mornin' till you please. I'll look after the breakfast," insisted Anson, struck with remorse by the expression on Bert's face. "But here's the letter. Short an' sweet."

DEAR BOYS [Bless the little fist that wrote that!]. I send my picture. I think it is a nice one. The girls say it flatters me, but Will says it don't [What the devil do we care what Will says?]—I guess it does, don't you? I wish I had a picture of you both; I want to show the girls how handsome you are [she means me, of course. No, confound it] how handsome you are both of you. I wish you would send me your pictures both of you. I ain't got much to say. I will write again soon.

ELGA.

Bert looked at the picture over Anson's shoulder, but did not seem to pay much attention to it.

"Wal, I'll go out an' shut the barn door. Nights git cold after the sun goes down. You needn't peel the 'taters to-night. We'll bake 'em, brussels an' all, to-morrow mornin'."

When Anson had gone, Bert snatched up the picture with great eagerness and gazed upon it with a steady, devouring glance. How womanly she looked with her hair done up so, and the broad, fair face and full bosom.

He heard Anson returning from the barn, and hastily laid the picture down, and when Anson entered was apparently dropping off to sleep.



CHAPTER X.

FLAXEN COMES HOME ON A VACATION.

It was in June, just before the ending of the school, that Flaxen first began to write about delaying her return. Anson was wofully disappointed. He had said all along that she would make tracks for home just as soon as school was out, and he had calculated just when she would arrive; and on the second day after the close of school for the summer he drove down to the train to meet her. She did not come, but he got a letter which said that one of her friends wanted her to stay two weeks with her, until after the Fourth of July.

"She's an awful nice girl, and we will have a grand time; she has a rich father and a piano and a pony and a buggy. It will just be grand."

"I don't blame her none," sighed Anson to Bert. "I don't want her to come away while she's enjoyin' herself. It'll be a big change for her to come back an' cook f'r us old mossbacks after bein' at school an' in good company all these months."

He was plainly disturbed. Her vacation was going to be all too short at the best, and he was so hungry for the sight of her! Still, he could not blame her for staying, under the circumstances; as he told Bert, his feelings did not count. He just wanted her to got all she could out of life; "there ain't much, anyway, for us poor devils; but what little there is we want her to have."

The Fourth of July was the limit of her stay, and on the sixth, seventh, and eighth Anson drove regularly to the evening train to meet her.

On the third day another letter came, saying that she would reach home the next Monday. With this Anson rode home in triumph. During the next few days he went to the barber's and had his great beard shaved off. "Made me look so old," he explained, seeing Bert's wild start of surprise. "I've be'n carryin' that mop o' hair round so long I'd kind o' got into the notion o' bein' old myself. Got a kind o' crick in the back, y' know. But I ain't; I ain't ten years older'n you be."

And he was not. His long blond moustache, shaved beard, and clipped hair made a new man of him, and a very handsome man, too, in a large way. He was curiously embarrassed by Bert's prolonged scrutiny, and said jocosely:

"We've got to brace up a little now. Company boarders comin', young lady from St. Peter's Seminary, city airs an' all that sort o' thing. Don't you let me see you eatin' pie with y'r knife. I'll break the shins of any man that feeds himself with anythin' 'cept the silver-plated forks I've bought."

Flaxen had been gone almost a year, and a year counts for much at her age. Besides, Anson had exaggerated ideas of the amount of learning she could absorb in a year at a boarding-seminary, and he had also a very vague idea of what "society" was in St. Peter, although he seemed suddenly to awake to the necessity of "bracing up" a little and getting things generally into shape. He bought a new suit of clothes and a second-hand two-seated carriage, notwithstanding the sarcastic reflection of his partner, who was making his own silent comment upon this thing.

"The paternal business is auskerspeelt," he said to himself. "Ans is goin' in on shape now. Well, it's all right; nobody's business but ours. Let her go, Smith; but they won't be no talk in this neighbourhood when they get hold of what's goin' on—oh, no!" He smiled grimly. "We can stand it, I guess; but it'll be hard on her. Ans is a little too previous. It's too soon to spring this trap on the poor little thing."

They stood side by side on the platform the next Monday when the train rolled into the station at Boomtown, panting with fatigue from its long run. Flaxen caught sight of Bert first as she sprang off the train, and running to him, kissed him without much embarrassment. Then she looked around, saying:

"Where's ol' pap? Didn't he——"

"Why, Flaxen, don't ye know me?" he cried out at her elbow.

She knew his voice, but his shaven face, so much more youthful, was so strange that she knew him only by his eyes laughing down into hers. Nevertheless she kissed him doubtfully.

"Oh, what've you done? You've shaved off your whiskers; you don't look a bit natural. I——"

She was embarrassed, almost frightened, at the change in him. He "looked so queer"; his fair, untroubled, smiling face and blond moustache made him look younger than Bert.

"Nev' mind that! She'll grow again if y' like it better. Get int' this new buggy—it's ours. They ain't no flies on us to-day; not many," said Ans in high glee, elaborately assisting her to the carriage, not appreciating the full meaning of the situation.

As they rode home he was extravagantly gay. He sat beside her, and she drove, wild with delight at the prairie, the wheat, the gulls, everything.

"Ain't no dust on our clo'es," said Ans, coughing, winking at Bert, and brushing off with an elaborately finical gesture an imaginary fleck from his knee and elbow. "Ain't we togged out? I guess nobody said 'boo' to us down to St. Peter, eh?"

"You like my clo'es?" said Flaxen, with charming directness.

"You bet! They're scrumptious."

"Well, they ought to be; they're my best, except my white dress. I thought you'd like 'em; I wore 'em a-purpose."

"Like 'em? They're—you're jest as purty as a red lily er a wild rose in the wheat—ahem! Ain't she, Bert, ol' boy? We're jest about starvin' to death, we are."

"I knew you'd be. What'll I stir up for supper? Biscuits?"

"Um, um! Say, what y' s'pose I've got to go with 'em?"

"Honey."

"Oh, you're too sharp," wailed Ans, while Flaxen went off into a peal of laughter. "Say, Bert's be'n in the damnedest—excuse me—plaguedest temper fer the last two munce as you ever did see."

While this chatter was going on Bert sat silent and unsmiling on the back seat. He was absorbed in seeing the exquisite colour that played in her check and the equally charming curves of her figure. She was well dressed and was wonderfully mature. He was saying to himself: "Ans ain't got no more judgment than a boy. We can't keep that girl here. More'n that, the girl never'll be contented again, unless——" He did not allow himself to go farther. He dared not even think farther.

They had a merry time that night, quite like old times. The biscuits were light and flaky, the honey was delightsome, and the milk and butter (procured specially) were fresh. They shouted in laughter as Flaxen insisted on their eating potatoes with a fork, and opposed the use of the knife in scooping up the honey from their plates! Even the saturnine Bert forgot his gloom and laughed too, as Ans laboriously dipped his honey with a fork, and, finally growing desperate, split a biscuit in half, and in the good old boyish way sopped it in the honey.

"There, that's the Christian way of doing things!" he exulted, while Flaxen laughed. How bright she was—how strange she acted! There were moments when she embarrassed them by some new womanly grace or accomplishment, some new air which she had caught from her companions or teachers at school. It was truly amazing how much she had absorbed outside of her regular studies. She indeed was no longer a girl; she was a young woman, and to them a beautiful one.

Not a day passed without some added surprise which made Anson exult and say, "She's gettin' her money's worth down there—no two ways about that."



CHAPTER XI.

FLAXEN GROWS RESTLESS.

But as the excitement of getting back died out, poor Flaxen grew restless, moody, and unaccountable. Before, she had always been the same cheery, frank, boyish creature. As Bert said, "You know where to find her." Now she was full of strange tempers and moods. She would work most furiously for a time, and then suddenly fall dreaming, looking away out on the shimmering plain toward the east.

At Bert's instigation, a middle-aged widow had been hired, at a fabulous price, to come and do the most of the work for them, thus releasing Flaxen from the weight of the hard work, which perhaps was all the worse for her. Hard work might have prevented the unbearable, sleepless pain within. She hated the slatternly Mrs. Green at once for her meddling with her affairs, though the good woman meant no offence. She was jocose in the broad way of middle-aged persons, to whom a love-affair is legitimate food for raillery.

But Gearheart's keen eye was on Flaxen as well. He saw how eagerly she watched for the mail on Tuesdays and Fridays, and how she sought a quiet place at once in order to read and dream over her letters. She was restless a day or two before a certain letter came, with an eager, excited, expectant air. Then, after reading it, she was absent-minded, flighty in conversation, and at last listlessly uneasy, moving slowly about from one thing to another, in a kind of restless inability to take continued interest in anything.

All this, if it came to the attention of Anson at all, was laid to the schooling the girl had had.

"Of course it'll seem a little slow to you, Flaxie, but harvestin' is comin' on soon, an' then things'll be a little more lively."

But Gearheart was not so slow-witted. He had had sisters and girl cousins, and knew "the symptoms," as Mrs. Green would have put it. He noticed that when Flaxen read her letters to them there was one which she carefully omitted. He knew that this was the letter which meant the most to her. He saw how those letters affected her, and thought he had divined in what way.

One day when Flaxen, after reading her letters, sprang up and ran into her bedroom; her eyes filled with sudden tears, Gearheart crooked his finger at Ans, and they went out to the barn together.

It was nearly one o'clock on an intolerable day peculiar to the Dakota plain. A frightfully hot, withering, and powerful wind was abroad. The thermometer stood nearly a hundred in the shade, and the wind, so far from being a relief, was suffocating because of its heat and the dust it swept along with it.

The heavy-headed grain and russet grass writhed and swirled as if in agony, and dashed high in waves of green and yellow. The corn-leaves had rolled up into long cords like the lashes of a whip, and beat themselves into tatters on the dry, smooth spot their blows had made beneath them; they seemed ready to turn to flame in the pitiless, furnace-like blast. Everywhere in the air was a silver-white, impalpable mist, which gave to the cloudless sky a whitish cast. The glittering gulls were the only living things that did not move listlessly and did not long for rain. They soared and swooped, exulting in the sounding wind; now throwing themselves upon it, like a swimmer, then darting upward with miraculous ease, to dip again into the shining, hissing, tumultuous waves of the grass.

Along the roads prodigious trains of dust rose hundreds of feet in the air, and drove like vast caravans with the wind. So powerful was the blast that men hesitated about going out with carriages, and everybody watched feverishly, expecting to see fire break out on the prairie and sweep everything before it. Work in the fields had stopped long before dinner, and the farmers waited, praying or cursing, for the wheat was just at the right point to be blighted.

As the two men went out to the shed side by side, they looked out on the withering wheat-stalks and corn-leaves with gloomy eyes.

"Another day like this, an' they won't be wheat enough in this whole county to make a cake," said Anson, with a calm intonation, which after all betrayed the anxiety he felt. They sat down in the wagon-shed near the horses' mangers. They listened to the roar of the wind and the pleasant sound of the horses eating their hay, a good while before either of them spoke again. Finally Bert said sullenly:

"We can't put up hay such a day as this. You couldn't haul it home under lock an' key while this infernal wind is blowin'. It's gittin' worse, if anythin'."

Anson said nothing, but waited to hear what Bert had brought him out here for. Bert speared away with his knife at a strip of board. Anson sat on a wagon-tongue, his elbows on his knees, looking intently at the grave face of his companion. The horses ground cheerily at the hay.

"Ans, we've got to send Flaxen back to St. Peter; she's so homesick she don't know what to do."

Ans' eyes fell.

"I know it. I've be'n hopin' she'd git over that, but it's purty tough on her, after bein' with the young folks in the city f'r a year, to come back here on a farm." He did not finish for a moment. "But she can't stand it. I'd looked ahead to havin' her here till September, but I can't stand it to see her cryin' like she did to-day. We've got to give up the idee o' her livin' here. I don't see any other way but to sell out an' go back East somewhere."

Bert saw that Anson was still ignorant of the real state of affairs, but thought he would say nothing for the present.

"Yes: that's the best thing we can do. We'll send her right back, an' take our chances on the crops. We can git enough to live on an' keep her at school, I guess."

They sat silent for a long time, while the wind tore round the shed, Bert spearing at the stick, and Anson watching the hens as they vainly tried to navigate in the wind. Finally Anson spoke:

"The fact is, Bert, this ain't no place f'r a woman, anyway—such a woman as Flaxen's gittin' to be. They ain't nothin' goin' on, nothin' to see 'r hear. You can't expect a girl to be contented with this country after she's seen any other. No trees; no flowers; jest a lot o' little shanties full o' flies."

"I knew all that, Ans, a year ago. I knew she'd never come back here, but I jest said it's the thing to do—give her a chance, if we don't have a cent; now let's go back to the house an' tell her she needn't stay here if she don't want to."

"Wha' d' ye s'pose was in that letter?"

"Couldn't say. Some girl's description of a pic-nic er somethin'." Bert was not yet ready to tell what he knew. When they returned to the house the girl was still invisible, in her room. Mrs. Green was busy clearing up the dinner-dishes.

"I don't know's I ever see such a wind back to Michigan. Seems as if it 'u'd blow the hair off y'r head."

"Oh, this ain't nothin'. This is a gentle zephyr. Wait till y' see a wind."

"Wal, I hope to goodness I won't never see a wind. Zephyrs is all I can mortally stand."

Anson went through the little sitting-room and knocked on Flaxen's door.

"Flaxie, we want to talk to yeh." There was no answer, and he came back and sat down. Bert pointed to the letter which Flaxen had flung down on the table. The giant took it, folded it up, and called, "Here's y'r letter, babe."

The door opened a little, and a faint, tearful voice said:

"Read it, if ye want to, boys." Then the door closed tightly again, and they heard her fling herself on the bed. Anson handed the letter to Bert, who read it in a steady voice.

DEAR DARLING: I have good news to tell you. My uncle was out from Wisconsin to see me and he was pleased with what I had done, and he bought out Mr. Ford, and gave me the whole half interest. I'm to pay him back when I please. Ain't that glorious? Now we can get married right off, can't we, darling? So you just show this letter to your father, and tell him how things stand. I've got a good business. The drug-store is worth $1,200 a year—my half—but knock off fifty per cent and we could live nicely. Don't you think so? I want to see you so bad, and talk things over. If you can't come back soon, I will come on. Write soon.

Yours till death,

WILL.

From the first word Anson winced, grew perplexed, then suffered. His head drooped forward on his hands, his elbows rested on his vast, spread knees. He drew his breath with a long, grieving gasp. Bert read on steadily to the end, then glanced at his companion with a deep frown darkening his face; but he was not taken by surprise. He had not had paternal affection change to the passion of a lover only to have it swept down like a half-opened flower. For the first time in his life Anson writhed in mental agony. He saw it all. It meant eternal separation. It meant a long ache in his heart which time could scarcely deaden into a tolerable pain.

Gearheart rose and went out, unwilling to witness the agony of his friend and desiring himself to be alone. Anson sat motionless, with his hands covering his wet eyes, going over the past and trying to figure the future.

He began in that storm: felt again the little form and face of the wailing child; thought of the frightful struggle against the wind and snow; of the touch of the little hands and feet; of her pretty prattle and gleeful laughter; then of her helpful and oddly-womanish ways as she grew older; of the fresh, clear voice calling him "pap" and ordering him about with a roguish air; of her beauty now, when for the first time he had begun to hope that she might be something dearer to him.

How could he live without her? She had grown to be a part of him. He had long ceased to think of the future without her. As he sat so, the bedroom door opened, and Flaxen's tearful face looked out at him. He did not seem to hear, and she stole up to him and, putting her arm around his neck, laid her cheek on his head—a dear, familiar, childish gesture, used when she wished to propitiate him. He roused himself and put his arm about her waist, tried to speak, and finally said in a sorry attempt at humor, wofully belied by the tears on his face and the choking in his throat:

"You tell that feller—if he wants ye, to jest come an'—git ye—that's all!"



CHAPTER XII.

FLAXEN SAYS GOOD-BYE.

Elga went back to her friends, the Holts, in the course of a week. It hurt Anson terribly to see how eager she was to get away, and he grew a little bitter—a quality of temper Bert did not know he possessed.

"What's that little whipper-snapper ever done for her, that she should leave us in the shade f'r him—f'rget us an' all we've done f'r her, an' climb out an' leave us just at his wink? It beats me, but it's all right. I don't blame her if she feels so—only it does seem queer, now don't it?"

"It does, that's a fact—'specially the idea of leaving us for a thing like that."

After arriving at a complete understanding of the matter, they said no more about it, but went to work to make everything as pleasant for Flaxen as possible. Again they rode down to the station with her, down past the wide, level fields of grain which the blazing sun had ripened prematurely. Again they parted from her at the train, but this time the girl was eager to go; and yet a peculiar feeling of sadness was mixed with her eagerness to be off.

"Now, boys, you'll come down just as soon as you can this fall, won't you?" she said, tearfully, as they stood in the aisle of the car. "I wish't you'd sell out an' come back there an' live—I want you to."

"Well, we'll try," Anson said, speaking with difficulty, the lump in his throat was so big and so dry.

They rode home in silence again, but this time there was something darker and more sullen in their thoughts.

"Well, Ans, that settles it. We're orphaned again, sure." He tried to give a little touch of jocoseness to it, but failed miserably.

"Yes," Anson sighed deeply, "we'll haf t' stand it, I s'pose, but it's tough."

It was hard, but it would have been harder had not the rush and push of the harvest come upon them just as it did. They never spoke of the matter again, except as a matter settled, till they received a letter from the young people asking their consent to an early marriage.

They both read the letter, and then Anson said, without raising his eyes:

"Well, what d' you think of it?"

"Oh, we might as well say yes," replied Bert irritably.

"But she's so young."

"She seems so to us, but my mother was married at fifteen. If she's going to leave us, why, the sooner she has a home the better, I s'pose."

"I s'pose you're right. But I'd rather have 'em put it off a year."

"Oh, a year wouldn't make any difference, and besides, you can't stop the thing now. She's out of our hands."

They wrote giving their consent, and the wedding was fixed for late September to enable the fall's work to be put out of the way. For Elga's sake they bought new suits and hats before starting on their trip, though the harvest hardly justified any extravagance.

Under other circumstances they would have rejoiced over the trip, for it was carrying them back to the gleam of leaf-dappled streams and waving trees and deep, cool forests. It made their nostrils dilate with pleasure as they whirled past fern-filled ravines, out of which the rivulets stole with stealthy circuits under mossy rocks. They were both forest-born, and it was like getting back home out of a strange desert country to come back into "the States."

St. Peter was a small town, situated on the steep bank of a broad river—that is to say, the business street was there, but the seminary and the residence part of the town was on a high and beautiful plateau. Tho country was well diversified with wood and prairie.

Kendall and Elga met them at the station. Elga with flushed face was searching the car-windows with eager glance, when Anson appeared on the platform. The quick rush she made for him drove out all his bitterness. It made him understand that she loved him as if he were her father.

She greeted Bert with a little less warmth, and chattering with joy she led the way up the street with Anson. She had a hundred things to tell him, and he listened in a daze. She seemed so different from his Flaxen. Bert walked behind with Kendall, who did not impress him favourably.

He was a harmless little creature enough—small, a little inclined to bow-legs, and dudish in manner and dress. His hair was smoothed till it shone like ebony, and he wore the latest designs in standing collars, high on his slim neck. His hands were beautifully small and white and held several rings. He had the manners of a dry-goods clerk.

"He can't abuse her, that's one good thing about the whelp," thought Bert as he crushed the young bridegroom's hand in his brown palm, just to see him cringe.

As for Kendall, he was a little afraid of these big fellows, so sullen and strong; and he tried his best to please them, chirping away brightly upon all kinds of things, ending up by telling them his business plans.

"We're one o' the best cities on the river. Couldn't be a better place fer a business stand, don't you see? And we're getting to the front with our wholesale department (of course—ha! ha! my wife's father ought to know how I'm getting on), so you're welcome to look over my books. Our trade is a cash trade so far as our retail trade goes, and we're mighty careful who gets tick from us on the wholesale trade. We're developing a great business."

Bert and Anson made no replies to his chatter, and he pattered along by Anson's side like a small boy, showing them the town and its beauties. Anson inwardly despised the little man, but held it a sort of treason to think so, and tried to look upon him kindly.

The wedding took place in the house of the Holt family, and was in charge of Miss Holt, Elga's teacher. Kendall's parents could not be present, which was a great disappointment to Elga, but Will was secretly glad of it. His father was a very crusty and brutal old fellow, and he would not have fitted in smoothly beside Bert and Anson, who were as uncomfortable as men could well be. Both wished to avoid it, but dared not object.

Anson stood bravely through the ceremony as the father of the bride, and bore himself with his usual massive, rude dignity. But he inwardly winced as he saw Elga, looking very stately and beautiful in her bride's veil, towering half a head above the sleek-haired little clerk. Not a few of the company smiled at the contrast, but she had no other feeling than perfect love and happiness.

When the ceremony was over and Anson looked around for Bert, he was gone. He couldn't stand the pressure of the crowd and the whispered comments, and had slipped away early in the evening.

Among the presents which were laid on the table in the dining-room was a long envelope addressed to Mrs. Will Kendall. It contained a deed for a house and lot in one of the most desirable parts of the suburbs. It was from Gearheart, but there was no other written word. This gift meant the sale of his claim in Dakota.

When Anson got back to the hotel that night, wondering and alarmed at his partner's absence, he found a letter from him. It was savage and hopeless.

This climate is getting too frigid for my lungs. I'm going to emigrate to California. I made a mistake: I ought to have gone in for stand-up collars, shiny hair, and bow-legs. You'd better skip back to Dakota and sell your claim. Keep my share of the stock and tools; it ain't worth bothering about. Don't try to live there alone, old man. If you can't sell, marry. Don't let that girl break you all up too. We are all fools, but some can get over it quicker than others.

If that little bow-legged thing gets under your feet or abuses her, jest get your toe under him and hoist him over into the alley.

Good-bye and good luck, old man.

BERT.

And the next day the doubly bereaved man started on his lonely journey back to the Dakota claim, back to an empty house, with a gnawing pain in his heart and a constriction like an iron band about his throat; back to his broad fields to plod to and fro alone.

As he began to realize it all and to think how terrible was this loss, he laid his head down on the car-seat before him and cried. His first great trial had come to him, and meeting it like a man, he must now weep like a woman.



CHAPTER XIII.

FLAXEN'S GREAT NEED.

Flaxen wrote occasionally, during the next year, letters all too short and too far between for the lonely man toiling away on his brown farm. These letters were very much alike, telling mainly of how happy she was, and of what she was going to do by and by, on Christmas or Thanksgiving. Once she sent a photograph of herself and husband, and Anson, after studying it for a long time, took a pair of shears and cut the husband off, and threw him into the fire.

"That fellow gives me the ague," he muttered.

Bert did not write, and there was hardly a night that Ans lay down on his bed that he did not wonder where his chum was, especially as the winter came on unusually severe, reminding him of that first winter in the Territory. Day after day he spent alone in his house, going out only to feed the cattle or to get the mail. The sad wind was always in his ears. But with the passage of time the pain in his heart lost its intensity.

One day he got a letter from Flaxen that startled and puzzled him. It was like a cry for help, somehow.

"Dear old pap, I wish you was here," and then in another place came the piteous cry, "Oh, I wish I had some folks!"

All night long that cry rang in the man's head with a wailing, falling cadence like the note of a lost little prairie-chicken.

"I wonder what that whelp has been doin' now. If he's begun to abuse her I'll wring his neck. She wants me an' da'sn't ask me to come. Poor chick, I'll be pap an' mam to ye, both," he said at last, with sudden resolution.

The day after the receipt of this letter a telegram was handed to him at the post-office, which he opened with trembling hands:

ANSON WOOD: Your daughter is ill. Wants you. Come at once.

DR. DIETRICH.

He got into his wagon mechanically and lashed his horses into a run. He must get home and arrange about his stock and catch the seven o'clock train. His mind ran the round of the possibilities in the case until it ached with the hopeless fatigue of it. When he got upon the train for an all-night ride, he looked like a man suffering some great physical pain.

He sat there all night in a common seat—he could not afford to pay for a sleeper; sat and suffered the honest torture that can come to a man—to sit and think the same dread, apprehensive wondering thoughts; to strain at the seat as if to push the train faster, and to ache with the desire to fly like the eagle. He tried to be patient, but he could only grow numb with the effort.

A glorious winter sun was beginning to light up the frost foliage of the maples lining St. Peter's streets when Anson, stiff with cold and haggard with a night of sleepless riding, sprang off the train and looked about him. The beauty of the morning made itself felt even through his care. These rows of resplendent maples, heavy with iridescent frost, were like fairy-land to him, fresh from the treeless prairie. As he walked on under them, showers of powdered rubies and diamonds fell down upon him; the colonnades seemed like those leading to some enchanted palace, such as he had read of in boyhood. Every shrub in the yards was similarly decked, and the snug cottages were like the little house which he had once seen at the foot of the Christmas-tree in a German church years before.

Feet crunched along cheerily on the sidewalks, bells of dray-teams were beginning to sound, and workmen to whistle.

Anson was met at the door by a hard-faced, middle-aged woman.

"How's my girl?" he asked.

"Oh, she's nicely. Walk in."

"Can I see her now?"

"She's sleepin'; I guess you better wait a little while till after breakfast."

"Where's Kendall?" was his next question.

"I d'n' know. Hain't seen 'im sence yesterday. He don't amount to much, anyway, and in these cases there ain't no dependin' on a boy like that. It's nachel fer girls to call on their mothers an' fathers in such cases."

Anson was about to ask her what the trouble was with his girl, when she turned away. She could not be dangerously ill; anyway, there was comfort in that.

After he had eaten a slight breakfast of bad coffee and yellow biscuits, Mrs. Stickney came back.

"She's awake an' wants to see yeh. Now don't get excited. She ain't dangerous."

Anson was alarmed and puzzled at her manner. Her smile mystified him.

"What is the matter?" he demanded.

Her reply was common enough, but it stopped him with his foot on the threshold. He understood at last. The majesty and mystery of birth was like a light in his face, and dazzled him. He was awed and exalted at the same time.

"Open the door; I want to see her," he said in a new tone.

As they entered the darkened chamber he heard his girl's eager cry.

"Is that you, pap?" wailed her faint, sweet voice.

"Yes: it's me, Flaxie." He crossed the room and knelt by the bed. She flung her arms round his neck.

"O pappy! pappy! I wanted you. Oh, my poor mamma! O pap, I don't like her," she whispered, indicating the nurse with her eyes. "O pap, I hate to think of mother lying there in the snow—an' Bert—where is Bert, pap? Perhaps he's in the blizzard too——"

"She's a little flighty," said the nurse in her matter-of-fact tone.

Anson groaned as he patted the pale cheek of the sufferer.

"Don't worry, Flaxie; Bert's all right. He'll come home soon. Why don't you send for the doctor?" he said to the nurse.

"He'll be here soon. Don't worry over that," indicating Flaxen, who was whispering to herself. "They of'n do that."

"Do you s'pose I can find my folks if I go back to Norway?" she said to Anson a little after.

"Yes: I guess so, little one. When you get well, we'll try an' see."

"Perhaps if I found my aunt she'd look like mamma, an' I'd know then how mamma looked, wouldn't I? Perhaps if the wheat is good this year we can go back an' find her, can't we?" Then her words melted into a moan of physical pain, and the nurse said:

"Now I guess you'd better go an' see if you can't hurry the doctor up. Yes: now he's got to go," she went on to Flaxen, drowning out her voice and putting her imploring hands back upon the bed.

Anson saw it all now. In her fear and pain she had turned to him—poor, motherless little bird—forgetting her boy-husband or feeling the need of a broader breast and stronger hand. It was a beautiful trust, and as the great, shaggy man went out into the morning he was exalted by the thought. "My little babe—my Flaxen!" he said with unutterable love and pity.

Again his mind ran over the line of his life—the cabin, the dead woman, the baby face nestling at his throat, the girl coming to him with her trials and triumphs. His heart swelled so that he could not have spoken, but deep in his throat he muttered a dumb prayer. And how he suffered that day, hearing her babble mixed with moanings every time the door opened. Once the doctor said:

"It's no use for you to stand here, Wood. It only makes you suffer and don't help her a particle."

"It seems 's if it helped her, an' so—I guess I'll stay. She may call for me, an' if she does," he said resolutely, "I'm goin' in, doctor. How is she now?"

"She's slightly delirious now, but still she knows you're here. She now and then speaks of you, but doesn't call for you."

But she did call for him, and he went in, and kneeling by her side he talked to her and held her hands, stroked her hair and soothed her as he need to when a little child unable to speak save in her pretty Norseland tongue, and at last when opiates were given, and he rose and staggered from the room, it seemed as though he had lived years.

So weary was he that, when the doctor came out and said, "You may go to sleep now," he dropped heavily on a lounge and fell asleep almost with the motion. Even the preparations for breakfast made by the hoarse-voiced servant-girl did not wake him, but the drawling, nasal tone of Kendall did. He sat up and looked at the oily little clerk. It was after seven o'clock.

"Hello!" said Kendall, "when d' you get in?"

"Shortly after you went out," said Anson in reply.

Kendall felt the rebuke, and as he twisted his cuffs into place said, "Well, y' see I couldn't do no good—a man ain't any good in such cases, anyway—so I just thought I'd run down to St. Paul an' do a little buying."

Anson turned away and went into the kitchen to wash his face and to comb his hair, glad to get rid of the sight of Kendall for a moment. Mrs. Stickney was toasting some bread.

"She's awake an' wants to see you when you woke up. It's a girl—thought I'd tell ye—yes: she's comfortable. Say, 'tween you an' me, a man 'at 'u'd run off—waal——" she ended, expressively glancing at Kendall.

Once more Anson caught his breath as he entered the darkened chamber. He was a rough, untaught man, but there was something in him that made that room holy and mysterious. But the figure on the bed was tranquil now, and the voice, though weak and low, was Flaxen's own.

He stopped as his eyes fell on her. She was no longer a girl. The majesty of maternity was on her pale face and in her great eyes. A faint, expectant smile was on her lips; her eyes were fixed on his face as she drew the cover from the little red, weirdly-wrinkled face at her throat.

Before he could speak, and while he was looking down at the mite of humanity, Kendall stepped into the room.

"Hello, Ellie! How are——"

A singular revulsion came out on her face. She turned to Anson. "Make him go 'way; I don't want him."

"All right," said Kendall cheerfully, glad to escape.

"Isn't she beautiful?" the mother whispered. "Does she look like me?" she asked artlessly.

"She's beautiful to me because she's yours, Flaxie," replied Anson, with a delicacy all the more striking because of the contrast with his great frame and hard, rough hands. "But there, my girl, go to sleep like baby, an' don't worry any more."

"You ain't goin' away while I'm sick?" she asked, following him with her eyes, unnaturally large.

"I won't never go 'way again if you don't want me to," he replied.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she sighed restfully.

He was turning to go when she wailed reproachfully, "Pap, you didn't kiss baby!"

Anson turned and came back. "She's sleepin', an' I thought it wasn't right to kiss a girl without she said so."

This made Flaxen smile, and Anson went out with a lighter heart than he had had for two years. Kendall met him outside and said confidentially:

"I don't s'pose it was just the thing for me to do; but—confound it! I never could stand a sick-room, anyway. I couldn't do any good, anyway—just been in the way. She'll get over her mad in a few days. Think so?"

But she did not. Her singular and sudden dislike of him continued, and though she passively submitted to his being in the room, she would not speak a word to him nor look at him as long as she could avoid it; and when he approached the baby or took it in his arms a jealous frown came on her face.

As for Anson, he grew to hate the sound of that little chuckle of Kendall's; the part in the man's hair and the hang of his cut-away coat made him angry. The trim legs, a little bowed, the big cuffs hiding the small, cold hands, and the peculiar set of his faultless collar, grew daily more insupportable.

"Say, looky here, Kendall," said he in desperation one day, "I wish you didn't like me quite so well. We don't hitch first rate—at least, I don't. Seems to me you're neglectin' your business too much."

He was going to tell him to keep away, but he relented as he looked down at the harmless little man, with his thin, boyish face.

"Oh, my business is all right. Gregory looks after it mostly, anyhow. But, I say, if you wanted to go into the dray business, there's a first-class opening now. Clark wants to sell."

It ended in Anson seeing Clark and buying out his line of drays, turning in his claim toward the payment—a transaction which made Flaxen laugh for joy, for she had not felt certain before that he would remain in St. Peter. She was getting about the house now, looking very wifely in her long, warm wraps, her slow motions contrasting strongly with the old restless, springing steps Anson remembered so well.

Night after night, as he sat beside the fire and held baby, listening to the changed voice of his girl and watching the grave, new expressions of her face, the tooth of time took hold upon him powerfully, and he would feel his shaggy head and think, "I'll soon be gray, soon be gray!" while the little one cooed, and sprang, and pulled at his beard, which had grown long again and had white hairs in it.

Kendall spent most of his time at the store, or downtown somewhere, and so all of those long, delicious winter evenings were Flaxen's and Anson's. And his enjoyment of them was pathetic. The cheerful little sitting-room, the open grate, the gracious, ever-growing womanliness of Elga, the pressure of soft little limbs; and the babble of a liquid baby language, were like the charm of an unexpected Indian-summer day between two gray November storms.



CHAPTER XIV.

KENDALL STEPS OUT.

One night Kendall did not come home, but as he had been talking of going to St. Paul they were not disturbed about it—in fact, they both took but very mild interest in his coming or going. In the morning, while they were at breakfast, there came a knock at the door.

"Come in," shouted Anson in the Western way, not rising.

McDaniel, the county sheriff, entered.

"Where's Kendall?" he asked without ceremony.

"I don't know; went away yesterday."

The sheriff looked at his companion. "Skipped between two days."

"What's up?" asked Anson, while Elga stared and baby reached slyly for the sugar-bowl.

"Nothing," the sheriff said in a tone which meant everything. "Come out here," he said to Anson. Anson went out with him, and he told him that Kendall had purchased goods on credit and gambled the money away, and was ruined.

His stock of goods was seized, and the house was saved only through the firmness of Anson.

Flaxen shut her lips and said nothing, and he could not read her silence. One day she came to him with a letter.

"Read that!" she exclaimed scornfully. He saw that it was dated from Eau Claire, Wisconsin:

DEAR DARLING WIFE: I'm all right here with father. It was all Gregory's fault—he was always betting on something. I'm coming back as soon as the old man can raise the money to pay Fitch. Don't worry about me. They can't take the house, anyway. You might rent the house, sell the furniture on the sly, and come back here. The old man will give me another show. I don't owe more than a thousand dollars, anyway. Write soon. Your loving

WILL.

She did not need to say what she thought of the advice the little villain gave.

Anson went quietly on with his work, making a living for himself and Flaxen and baby. It never occurred to either of them that any other arrangement was necessary. Kendall wrote once or twice a month for awhile, saying each time, "I'll come back and settle up," and asking her to come to him; but she did not reply, and never referred to him outside her home, and when others inquired after him she replied evasively:

"He's in Wisconsin somewhere; I don't know where."

"Is he coming back?"

"I don't know."

She often spoke of Bert, and complained of his silence. Once she said:

"I guess he's forgot us, pap."

"I guess not. More likely he's thinkin' we've fergot him. He'll turn up some bright mornin' with a pocketful o' rocks. He ain't no spring chicken, Bert ain't." ("All the same, I wish't he'd write," Anson said to himself.)

* * * * *

The sad death of Kendall came to them without much disturbing force. He had been out of their lives so long that when Anson came in with the paper and letter telling of the accident, and with his instinctive delicacy left her alone to read the news, Flaxen was awed and saddened, but had little sense of personal pain and loss.

"Young Kendall," the newspaper went on under its scare-heads, "was on a visit to La Crosse, and while skating with a party on the bayou, where the La Crosse River empties into the Father of Waters, skated into an air-hole. The two young ladies with him were rescued, but the fated man was swept under the ice. He was the son," etc.

When Anson came back Flaxen sat with the letter in her hand and the paper on her lap. She was meditating deeply, but what was in her mind Anson never knew. She had grown more and more reticent of late. She sighed, rose, and resumed her evening tasks.



CHAPTER XV.

BERT COMES BACK.

One raw March evening, when the wind was roaring among the gray branches of the maples like a lion in wrath, some one knocked on the door.

"Come in!" shouted Anson, who was giving baby her regular ride on his boots.

"Come in!" added Flaxen.

Gearheart walked in slowly, closed the door behind his back, and stood devouring the cheerful scene. He was poorly dressed and wore a wide, limp hat; they did not know him till he bared his head.

"Bert!" yelled Anson, tossing the baby to his shoulder and leaping toward his chum, tramping and shaking and clapping like a madman, scaring the child.

"My gosh-all-hemlock! I'm glad to see ye! Gimme that paw again. Come to the fire. This is Flaxie" (as though he had not had his eyes on her face all the time). "Be'n sick?"

Bert's hollow cough prompted this question.

"Yes. Had some kind of a fever down in Arizony. Oh, I'm all right now," he added in reply to an anxious look from Flaxen.

"An' this is——"

"Baby—Elsie," she replied, putting a finishing touch to the little one's dress, mother-like.

"Where's he?" he asked a little later.

Anson replied with a little gesture, which silenced Bert at the same time that it explained. And when Flaxen was busy a few moments later, Anson said:

"Gone up the spout."

At the table they grew quite gay, talking over old times, and Bert's pale face grew rosier, catching a reflection of the happy faces opposite.

"Say, Bert, do you remember the time you threw that pan o' biscuits I made out into the grass an' killed every dog in the township?" Then they roared.

"I remember your flapjacks that always split open in the middle, an' no amount o' heat could cook 'em inside," Bert replied.

Then they grew sober again when Bert said with a pensive cadence: "Well, I tell you, those were days of hard work; but many's the time I've looked back at 'em these last three years, wishin' they'd never ended an' that we'd never got scattered."

"We won't be again, will we, pap?"

"Not if I can help it," Anson replied.

"But how are you, Bert? Rich?"

Bert put his hand into his pocket and laid a handful of small coins on the table.

"That's the size o' my pile—four dollars," he said, smiling faintly; "the whole o' my three years' work."

"Well, never mind, ol' man. I've got a chance fer yeh. Still an ol' bach?"

"Still an old bach." He looked at Flaxen, irresistibly drawn to her face. She dropped her eyes; she could not have told why.

And so "Wood & Gearheart" was painted on the sides of the drays, and they all continued to live in the little yellow cottage, enjoying life much more than the men, at least, had ever dared to hope; and little Elsie grew to be a "great girl," and a nuisance with her desire to "yide" with "g'an'pap."

There is no spot more delightful in early April than the sunny side of the barn, and Ans and Bert felt this, though they did not say it. The eaves were dripping, the doves cooing, the hens singing their harsh-throated, weirdly suggestive songs, and the thrilling warmth and vitality of the sun and wind of spring made the great, rude fellows shudder with a strange delight. Anson held out his palm to catch the sunshine in it, took off his hat to feel the wind, and mused:

"This is a great world—and a great day. I wish't it was always spring."

"Say," began Bert abruptly, "it seems pretty well understood that you're her father—but where do I come in?"

"You ought to be her husband." A light leaped into the younger man's face. "But go slow," Anson went on gravely. "This package is marked 'Glass; handle with care.'"

THE END.



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THE LAST WORDS OF THOMAS CARLYLE. Including Wotton Reinfred, Carlyle's only essay in fiction; the Excursion (Futile Enough) to Paris; and letters from Thomas Carlyle, also letters from Mrs. Carlyle, to a personal friend. With Portrait. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.75.

"The interest of 'Wotton Reinfred' to me is considerable, from the sketches which it contains of particular men and women, most of whom I knew and could, if necessary, identify. The story, too, is taken generally from real life, and perhaps Carlyle did not finish it, from the sense that it could not be published while the persons and things could be recognized. That objection to the publication no longer exists. Everybody is dead whose likenesses have been drawn, and the incidents stated have long been forgotten."—James Anthony Froude.

"'Wotton Reinfred' is interesting as a historical document. It gives Carlyle before he had adopted his peculiar manner, and yet there are some characteristic bits—especially at the beginning—in the Sartor Resartus vein. I take it that these are reminiscences of Irving and of the Thackeray circle, and there is a curious portrait of Coleridge, not very thinly veiled. There is enough autobiography, too, of interest in its way."—Leslie Stephen.

"No complete edition of the Sage of Chelsea will be able to ignore these manuscripts."—Pall Mall Gazette.

MEN, MINES, AND ANIMALS IN SOUTH AFRICA. By Lord Randolph S. Churchill. With Portrait, Sixty-five Illustrations, and a Map. 8vo. 337 pages. Cloth, $5.00.

"The subject-matter of the book is of unsurpassed interest to all who either travel in new countries, to see for themselves the new civilizations, or follow closely the experiences of such travelers. And Lord Randolph's eccentricities are by no means such as to make his own reports of what he saw in the new states of South Africa any the less interesting than his active eyes and his vigorous pen naturally make them."—Brooklyn Eagle.

"Lord Randolph Churchill's pages are full of diversified adventures and experience, from any part of which interesting extracts could be collected.... A thoroughly attractive book."—London Telegraph.

"Provided with amusing illustrations, which always fall short of caricature, but perpetually suggest mirthful entertainment."—Philadelphia Ledger.

"The book is the better for having been written somewhat in the line of journalism. It is a volume of travel containing the results of a journalist's trained observation and intelligent reflection upon political affairs. Such a work is a great improvement upon the ordinary book of travel. Lord Randolph Churchill thoroughly enjoyed his experiences in the African bush, and has produced a record of his journey and exploration which has hardly a dull page in it."—New York Tribune.

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.



LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. By G. Maspero, late Director of Archaeology in Egypt, and Member of the Institute of France. Translated by Alice Morton. With 188 Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"A lucid sketch, at once popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt in the time of Rameses II, and of Assyria in that of Assurbanipal.... As an Orientalist, M. Maspero stands in the front rank, and his learning is so well digested and so admirably subdued to the service of popular exposition, that it nowhere overwhelms and always interests the reader."—London Times.

"Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities could have produced this work, which has none of the features of a modern book of travels in the East, but is an attempt to deal with ancient life as if one had been a contemporary with the people whose civilization and social usages are very largely restored."—Boston Herald.

"The ancient artists are copied with the utmost fidelity, and verify the narrative so attractively presented."—Cincinnati Times-Star.

THE THREE PROPHETS: Chinese Gordon; Mohammed-Ahmed; Araby Pasha. Events before, during, and after the Bombardment of Alexandria. By Colonel Chaille-Long, ex-Chief of Staff to Gordon in Africa, ex-United States Consular Agent in Alexandria, etc. With Portraits. 16mo. Paper, 50 cents.

"Comprises the observations of a man who, by reason of his own military experience in Egypt, ought to know whereof he speaks."—Washington Post.

"Throws an entirely new light upon the troubles which have so long agitated Eyypt, and upon their real significance."—Chicago Times.

THE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS. By Emily Ruete, nee Princess of Oman and Zanzibar. Translated from the German. 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.

"A remarkably interesting little volume.... As a picture of Oriental court life, and manners and customs in the Orient, by one who is to the manner born, the book is prolific in entertainment and edification."—Boston Gazette.

"The interest of the book centers chiefly in its minute description of the daily life of the household from the time of rising until the time of retiring, giving the most complete details of dress, meals, ceremonies, feasts, weddings, funerals, education, slave service, amusements, in fact everything connected with the daily and yearly routine of life."—Utica (N. Y.) Herald.

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.



THE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF EUROPE. The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of the Reigning Families. By "Politikos." With many Portraits, 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"A remarkably able book.... A great deal of the inner history of Europe is to be found in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable portraits."—The Athenaeum.

"Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns.... The anonymous author seems to have sources of information that are not open to the foreign correspondents who generally try to convey the impression that they are on terms of intimacy with royalty."—San Francisco Chronicle.

"The anonymous author of these sketches of the reigning sovereigns of Europe appears to have gathered a good deal of curious information about their private lives, manners, and customs, and has certainly in several instances had access to unusual sources. The result is a volume which furnishes views of the kings and queens concerned far fuller and more intimate than can be found elsewhere."—New York Tribune.

"... A book that would give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (so far as such comprehensive accuracy is possible), about these exalted personages, so often heard about but so seldom seen by ordinary mortals, was a desideratum, and this book seems well fitted to satisfy the demand. The author is a well-known writer on questions indicated by his pseudonym."—Montreal Gazette.

"A very handy book of reference."—Boston Transcript.

MY CANADIAN JOURNAL, 1872-'78. By Lady Dufferin. Extracts from letters home written while Lord Dufferin was Governor-General of Canada. With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations from sketches by Lord Dufferin. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.

"A graphic and intensely interesting portraiture of out-door life in the Dominion, and will become, we are confident, one of the standard works on the Dominion.... It is a charming volume."—Boston Traveller.

"In every place and under every condition of circumstances the Marchioness shows herself to be a true lady, without reference to her title. Her book is most entertaining, and the abounding good-humor of every page must stir a sympathetic spirit in its readers."—Philadelphia Bulletin.

"The many readers of Lady Dufferin's Journal of 'Our Vice-Regal Life in India' will welcome this similar record from the same vivacious pen, although it concerns a period antecedent to the other, and takes one back many years. The book consists of extracts from letters written home by Lady Dufferin to her friends (her mother chiefly) while her husband was Governor-General of Canada; and describes her experiences in the same chatty and charming style with which readers were before made familiar."—Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.



HAND-BOOKS OF SOCIAL USAGES.

SOCIAL ETIQUETTE OF NEW YORK. Rewritten and enlarged. 18mo. Cloth, gilt, $1.00.

Special pains have been taken to make this work represent accurately existing customs in New York society. The subjects treated are of visiting and visiting-cards, giving and attending balls, receptions, dinners, etc., debuts, chaperons, weddings, opera and theatre parties, costumes and customs, addresses and signatures, and funeral customs, covering so far as practicable all social usages.

DON'T; or, Directions for avoiding Improprieties in Conduct and Common Errors of Speech. By Censor. Parchment-Paper Edition, square 18mo. 30 cents. Vest-Pocket Edition, cloth, flexible, gilt edges, red lines, 30 cents. Boudoir Edition (with a new chapter designed for young people), cloth, gilt, 30 cents. 130th thousand.

"Don't" deals with manners at the table, in the drawing-room, and in public, with taste in dress, with personal habits, with common mistakes in various situations in life, and with ordinary errors of speech.

WHAT TO DO. A Companion to "Don't." By Mrs. Oliver Bell Bunce. Small 18mo. cloth, gilt, uniform with Boudoir Edition of "Don't," 30 cents.

A dainty little book, containing helpful and practical explanations of social usages and rules. It tells the reader how to entertain and how to be entertained, and it sets forth the etiquette of engagements and marriages, introductions and calls.

"GOOD FORM" IN ENGLAND. By An American, resident in the United Kingdom. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"The raison d'etre of this book is to provide Americans—and especially those visiting England—with a concise, comprehensive, and comprehensible hand-book which will give them all necessary information respecting 'how things are' in England."—From the Preface.

HINTS ABOUT MEN'S DRESS: Right Principles Economically Applied. By a New York Clubman. 18mo. Parchment-paper, 30 cents.

A useful manual, especially for young men desirous of dressing economically and yet according to the canons of good taste.

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.

THE END