of late that Flaxen
never could come back to them in the old relation; but how could she
come back?

Gearheart stopped and gazed thoughtfully upward. She must come back as
the wife of Ans or himself. "Pooh! she is only a child," he said,
snapping his finger and walking on. But the insistence remained. "She
is not a child--she is a maiden, soon to be a woman; she has no
relatives, no home to go to but ours after her two or three years of
schooling are over. It must still be her home; no breath of scandal
shall touch her if I can prevent it; and after her two years are
up"--after a long, motionless reverie he strode forward--"she shall
choose between us."

There had grown up between the two friends of late a constraint, or, to
be more exact, Gearheart had held himself in before his friend, had not
discussed these problems with him at all. "Ans is just like a boy," he
had said to himself; "he don't seem to understand the case, and I don't
know as it's my duty to enlighten him; he either feels very sure about
her, or he has not understood the situation."

He was thinking this now as he strode across the spongy sod toward the
lighted windows of the shanty. The air was damp and chill, for the ice
was not yet out of the ponds or swamps of tall grasses. An occasional
prairie-cock sent forth a muffled, drowsy "boom"; low-hung flights of
geese, gabbling anxiously, or the less-orderly ducks, with hissing
wings, swept by overhead, darkly limned against the stars. There was a
strange charm in the raw air. The weary man almost forgot his pain as
he drew deep breathings of the night.

It was significant of the restraint that had grown up between him and
Anson that he held the letter from Flaxen unopened in his hand simply
because it was directed to his friend. He knew that it was as much to
him as to Anson, and yet, feeling as he had of late, he would not open
it, for he would have been angry if Anson had opened one directed to
him. He simply judged Anson by himself.

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