eemed
the man; or merely made him vulnerable. Certainly any harm that might
come to the baby would be a crushing blow to Hazen.

He put the child down on the floor again and he said to the woman
curtly: "Tend him well." She nodded. There was a dumb submission in her
eyes; but through this blank veil I had seen now and then a blaze of
pain.

Hazen went out of the door without further word to her, and I followed
him. We got into the sleigh, bundling ourselves into the robes for the
six-mile drive along the drifted road to town. There was a feeling of
storm in the air. I looked at the sky and so did Hazen Kinch. He guessed
what I would have said and he answered me before I could speak.

"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and leered at me.

Nevertheless, I knew the storm would come. The mare turned out of the
barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her
hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to
the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of
Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such
ups and downs.

At the top of the hill we paused for a moment to breathe the mare;
paused just in front of the big old Rayborn house, that has stood there
for more years than most of us remember. It was closed and shuttered and
deserted; and Hazen dipped his whip toward it and said meanly:

"An ugly, improvident lot, the Rayborns were."

I had known only one of them--the eldest son. A fine man, I had thought
him. Picking apples in his orchard, he fell one October and broke his
neck. His widow tried to make a go of the place, but she borrowed of
Hazen and he had evicted her this three months back. It was one of the
lesser evils he had done. I looked at the house and at him, and he
clucked to the mare and we dipped down into the steep valley below the
hill.

The wind had a sweep in that valley and there was a drift of snow across
it and across the road. This drift was well packed by the wind, but when
we drove over its top our left-hand runner broke through the coaming and
we tumbled into the snow, Hazen and I. We were well entangled in the
rugs. The mare gave a frightened start, but Hazen had held the reins and
the whip so that she could not break away. We got up together, he and I,
and we righted the sleigh and set it upon the road again. I remember
that it was becoming bitter cold and the sun was no longer shining.
There was