kness his head bent an
instant on his outstretched arm--it had never before been hard to go;
then he turned and walked softly away.

At the breakfast table and at the dinner table the talk was of the
snow. The evening paper contained a column of despatches concerning
the blockade, now serious, in the eighth district. Half the first page
was given to alarming reports from the cattle ranges. Two
mail-carriers were reported lost in the Sweetgrass country, and a ski
runner from Fort Steadman, which had been cut off for eight days, told
of thirty-five feet of snow in the Whitewater hills.

Sleepy Cat reported eighteen inches of fresh snow, and a second delayed
despatch under the same date-line reported that a bucking special from
Medicine Bend, composed of a rotary, a flanger, and five locomotives
had passed that point at 9 A.M. for the eighth district.

Gertrude found no interest in the news or the discussion. She could
only wonder why she did not see Glover during the day, and when he made
no appearance at dinner she grew sick with uncertainty. Leaving the
dining-room ahead of the party in some vague hope of seeing him,
Solomon hurried up with the note that Glover had left to be given her
in the morning. The boy had gone off duty before she left her room and
had over-slept, but instead of waiting for his apologies she hastened
to her room and locked her door to devour her lover's words. She saw
that he had written her in the dead of night to explain his going, and
to say good-by. Bucks' message he had enclosed. "But I shall work
very hard every hour I am gone to get back the sooner," he promised,
"and if you hear of the snow flying over the peaks on the West End you
will know that I am behind it and headed straight for you."

When Marie and Mrs. Whitney came up, Gertrude sat calmly before the
grate fire, but the note lay hidden over her heart, for in it he had
whispered that while he was away every night at eight o'clock and every
morning, no matter where she should be, or what doing, he should kiss
her lips and her eyes as he had kissed them that first morning in the
dark, warm office. When eight o'clock came her aunt and her sister sat
with her; but Gertrude at eight o'clock, musing, was with her lover and
her lips and eyes again were his to do with what he would. Later
Doctor Lanning came in and she roused to hear the news about the snow.
Between Sleepy Cat and Bear Dance two passenger trains were stalle