way, there will be but another dance or two, and
I was wondering whether I could drive you home; I've got Wyllard's
Ontario sleigh."

Sally glanced at him rather sharply. She had half-expected this offer,
and it is possible would have judiciously led him up to it if he had not
made it. Now, as she saw that he really wished to drive her home, she
was glad that she had not deliberately encouraged the invitation.

"Yes," she answered softly, "I think you could."

"Then," said Hawtrey, "if you'll wait ten minutes I'll be back with the
team."

CHAPTER II

SALLY TAKES CHARGE

The night was clear and bitterly cold when Hawtrey and Sally Creighton
drove away from Stukely's barn. Winter had lingered unusually long that
year, and the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail cutting
athwart it, a smear of blue-gray in the foreground. It was--for Lander's
lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts that engirdled
it--an empty wilderness that the mettlesome team swung across, and
during the first few minutes the cold struck through the horses with a
sting like the thrust of steel. A half moon, coppery red with frost,
hung low above the snow-covered earth, and there was no sound but the
crunch beneath the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully
through the silence like a roll of muffled drums.

Sleighs like the one that Hawtrey drove are not common on the prairie,
where the farmer generally uses the humble bob-sled when the snow lies
unusually long. It had been made for use in Montreal, and bought back
East by a friend of Hawtrey's, who was possessed of some means, which is
a somewhat unusual thing in the case of a Western wheat-grower. This man
also had bought the team--the fastest he could obtain--and when the
warmth came back to the horses Hawtrey and the girl became conscious of
the exhilaration of the swift and easy motion. The sleigh was light and
narrow, and Hawtrey, who drew the thick driving-robe higher about Sally,
did not immediately draw the mittened hand he had used back again. The
girl did not resent the fact that it still rested behind her shoulder,
nor did Hawtrey attach any particular significance to the fact. He was a
man who usually acted on impulse. How far Sally understood him did not
appear, but she came of folk who had waged a stubborn battle with the
wilderness, and there was a vein of grim tenacity in her.

She was, however, conscious that there was something beneat