Snow fell on the very heels of the cavalry. Scarcely were the Indians safe in the stockade and the troopers once more in barracks, when some first flakes, like down plucked by the wind from the breasts of the southward-hastening wild-fowl, came floating out of the sky. Soon the long sumach leaves on the coulÉe edge were drooping under a crystalline weight, the black plowed strip was blending with the unplowed prairie, and the shock head of the cottonwood shack was donning a spotless night-cap. And so heavy and ceaseless was the downfall that, at supper-time, the sweet trumpet notes of "retreat" were wafted out from Brannon across a covered plain.

When morning dawned, the heavens were cloudless, and the laggard sun, as it rose, shone with blinding glory upon peaceful miles. Nowhere was a sign of wallow, path or road, and the coulÉe yawned, white-lipped. Even the Missouri was not unchanged. For, away to the northwest, there had been a mighty rainstorm, and the murky river tumbled by in waves that were angry and swollen.

Since his early boyhood, the section-boss had not known snow. Before the previous day, Dallas and Marylyn had never seen it. It was with exclamations of delight, therefore, that, crowding together in the doorway, the three first caught sight of the glistening drifts."Pa, it's like a Christmas card," cried the younger girl. And, bareheaded, she ran out to frolic before the shack.

To Dallas, the scene had a deeper meaning. Here was what would discourage and block anyone who had put off necessary improvements! And this would last long after the expiration of that six months! "I guess there'll be no building or plowing now," she said to her father, happily.

He, fully as relieved, returned a confident assent.

A little later, Old Michael, the ferryman, drove by, breaking a track along the blotted road. His ancient corduroys, known to every river-man from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the hindmost box.

On the arrival of the saloon gang, the pilot had left his steamboat in the hands of his two helpers and made his way to Shanty Town. There, in a shingle hut, perched atop a whisky cask, and kicking its rotund belly complacently with his heels, he had wet a throat, long dry, from the amber depths beneath him.

With each succeeding glass, his obligations had grown apace. Nevertheless, for a lifetime of rough service had brought about an immunity that belied his Celtic blood, his brain remained clear, his step steady and his eye unbleared. Thus it happened that when, cut off from grazing, it was necessary for the Shanty Town teams to be returned at once to Clark's, Old Michael was on hand and in condition to take them, and, by so doing, wipe out his drinking-account.

As he came opposite the shack, Marylyn was still running about in the snow, while Dallas was sweeping out some long, narrow drifts that had sifted in through window-and door-cracks. Squinting across at them, he recalled, all at once, a heated conversation that had taken place at Shanty Town the afternoon of the southward departure of a Dodge City courier. And he shook his head sorrowfully.

"Ye'll have yer han's fule before long," he advised aloud, "or it's me that's not good at guessin'." And, lifting the front of his cap, he sympathetically blew the purple bump that served him for a nose till it rang through the crisp air like a throaty bugle.

Farther on, as he sat pondering deeply and letting the leaders choose their course, a horseman came cantering toward him, and drew rein beside his wheel. It was Lounsbury, buried to the ears in a buffalo coat.

"Sure, it's somethin' important, John, that's a-bringin' ye out t'-day," cried Old Michael, roguishly, his brogue disclosing his identity. "It's ayther tillegrams or l-a-a-ydies."

The storekeeper coloured under his visor. "It's nay-ther," he mocked laughingly.

"None o' yer shillyshallin'," warned the ferryman, giving the other a playful whack with his gad. "Oi kin rade ye loike a buke."

"You can't read a book," declared Lounsbury. "But I'll tell you: I'm going to the Lancasters'."Old Michael nodded, with a sly wink through the portholes of his mask. "Oi knowed it!" he said. Then, after fishing out a tobacco-bag from under his many coats and lighting the corn-cob in the protecting bowl of his palms, "In that case, man, Oi got somethin' t' say t' ye."

He leaned over the wheel confidentially, and Lounsbury bent toward him, so that the smoke of the pipe fed the storekeeper's nostrils. They talked for a half-hour, the one relating his story, the other putting in quick questions. At the end of their conversation, Lounsbury held out his hand.

"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don't you fail to let me know."

"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.

They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying—as on his former visit—good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the bearer of evil.

And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks glowing, was a new Dallas."Well, how've you all been?" asked Lounsbury, accepting a bench.

"Oh, spright 'nough," answered the section-boss. "But it's cold, it's cold. Keeps me tremblin' like a guilty nigger."

"You'll get over that," assured the other, rubbing the blood into his hands. "It's natural for you to be soft as chalk-rock the first winter—you've been living South."

"Ah reckon," agreed Lancaster. He sat down beside the younger man, eyeing him closely. "How d' y' come t' git away fr'm business?" he queried.

"Well, you see," Lounsbury answered, "I've got an A 1 man in my Bismarck store, and at Clark's there's nothing to do week days, hardly. So I just took some tobacco to Skinney's, where the boys could get at it, and loped down here." Then, playfully, "But I don't see much happening in these parts." He stretched toward a window. "The town of Lancaster ain't growing very fast."

Dallas, seated on a bench with Marylyn, looked across at him smilingly. "I'm glad of it," she declared. "We ain't used to towns."

"You folks've never lived in one?"

"No—we never even been in one."

He puckered his forehead. "Funny," he said. "Somehow, I always think of you two as town girls."

"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Lancaster, scowling.

But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That's on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, and all of 'em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So—so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma'ams."

"One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn. Her eyes, wide with recollection, were fixed upon Lounsbury.

"But you passed through cities coming north," argued the storekeeper.

"N-n-no," said Dallas, slowly; "we—we skirted 'em."

"What a pity!" He turned to the section-boss.

"Pity!" echoed the latter. "Huh! You save you' pity. My gals is better off ef they don' meet no town hoodlums."

It had been "soldier trash" before; now, it was "town hoodlums." Lounsbury wondered why he had been allowed a second call. He glanced at the girls. There was a sudden shadow on each young face. He changed to the fire, and looked hard at it. How cut off they were! Where was their happiness—except in their home? And could he tell them even that was threatened?

"Not by a long shot!" he vowed. "I'll trust Old Michael."

He set himself to being 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 coulÉe. 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.

Lounsbury was thoroughly provoked at the treatment shown him—he was hurt at the plain lack of faith. Again, he considered what course to pursue. Granted the family knew all he could tell them, what would be gained by forcing the fact of his knowledge upon them? Nothing—unless it were more suspicion against himself. And if they were in ignorance—well, it was better than premature care. As before, he decided to remain silent and depend upon the pilot.

He glanced at Marylyn. On her father's departure, she had moved out of the shadow. Now, she was sitting bolt upright, with fingers touching the bench at either side. Her lips were half parted. She was watching Lounsbury wonderingly.

The moment their eyes met, her own fell. She reached to the mantel for a beaded belt, and began work upon it precipitately.

"What is the prairie princess doing?" he asked.

"Making something." She held the belt by one hand to let it slip through the other.

He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that."

She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said."I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched.

She started nervously.

"Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?"

"No." It was whispered.

"Well, you mustn't be." His tone was one that might have been used to a child. "Since I rode here a month ago, I've thought of you folks a lot. I'd like to do a real good turn for you. Perhaps it's because you girls seem so lonely——"

"We're not lonely," she declared. "The Fort's near, and we can hear the band. And pa says there'll be three or four steamers go by next summer."

The storekeeper mentally kicked himself. "The idea of suggesting a thing like that," he growled inwardly, "when she hadn't even thought of it! John Lounsbury, you've got about as much sense as a fool mud-hen."

"And," went on Marylyn, "there's the ladies at Fort Brannon. If pa——" She hesitated.

Lounsbury shook his head, smiling. "Well, I wouldn't count on them, if I were you," he advised, remembering certain experiences of Bismarck belles. "Those women over there are as clannish as crows."

"Yes?" plaintively. She went at her beads again.

"As I was saying," he began once more, "I've thought of you folks a lot. Seemed as if I just had to come down to-day. And I brought you something. See here!" He delved into the side pockets of his coat and pulled out two books.

"O-o-oh!" breathed Marylyn. "Books!""All I had, but maybe you'll like 'em. They're love stories."

The shadow beyond the firelight claimed her again.

From the lean-to came the sound of Lancaster's voice. It was shrill with anger. A great sadness came over the storekeeper. "I wish I could come down often and look after things," he said. "You need another man around."

There was a short silence. Then, "Dallas likes the work outside," she answered, very low, "and driving Ben and Betty up and down."

He nodded. "But you?"

"I like to stay in and sew."

"'Stay in and sew,'" he mused. "That takes me back to the States. My dear mother sits by the fire and sews. Ah!"—with big-brotherly tenderness—"I hope you'll never have to do anything harder."

"Dallas won't let me work outside. She says she's the man."

Dallas—the man! Somehow it stung him. And then he heard the elder girl pushing an armful of hay before the eager noses of the mules. He got up quickly. "She is tending to those beasts!" he exclaimed. "Why, if I'd 'a' thought——"

She rose also, a wavering figure in the half light.

He picked up hat and coat, then halted. If he offered his help in the lean-to, what would be his reception? He felt utterly hampered, and began twirling his thumbs like a bashful cowboy. Moreover, Lancaster had been gone a good while. Was his absence a hint for his visitor to go?

The storekeeper went up to Marylyn. "Good-by," he said. "I must be hiking along."She put a trembling hand in his.

The latch clicked behind them, and the section-boss entered. Again the younger girl started, and consciously.

Lancaster banged the door and looked them over. "Huh!" he snorted meaningly. So—he had misled himself with the idea that Lounsbury had come to pry into the matter of the claim. And all the while, underneath, the storekeeper had had another object!

He jerked at a bench, dropped upon it and flung his crutches down.

The other saw the look and heard the sniff. He believed they arose from the fact that he was still there. "Just going, Lancaster," he said. "So long."

"S' long."

"Good-by, Miss Marylyn. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." He gave her a hearty smile.

"Good-by." She opened the door for him.

John Lounsbury passed out, regretting that he had been unwelcome; indignant that the section-boss had misjudged his interest in the ownership of the claim. But he would have been astounded if he had known the real nature of the false impression he was leaving with Evan Lancaster; or had read the thoughts of the younger girl, country-reared, unused to the little courtesies of speech and action. For there were two who had misunderstood him that day.