one thing about the
wind--it's the only free thing in the world--THE--ONLY--FREE--THING.
Everything else is subject to some law, but the wind is FREE. It bloweth
where it listeth and no man can tame it. It's free--that's why I
love it, though I'm afraid of it. It's a grand thing to be free--free
free--free!"

Peg's voice rose almost to a shriek. We were dreadfully frightened, for
we knew there were times when she was quite crazy and we feared one of
her "spells" was coming on her. But with a swift movement she turned
the man's coat she wore up over her shoulders and head like a hood,
completely hiding her face. Then she crouched forward, elbows on knees,
and relapsed into silence. None of us dared speak or move. We sat thus
for half an hour. Then Peg jumped up and said briskly in her usual tone,

"Well, I guess yez are all sleepy and ready for bed. You girls can sleep
in my bed over there, and I'll take the sofy. Yez can put the cat off if
yez like, though he won't hurt yez. You boys can go downstairs. There's
a big pile of straw there that'll do yez for a bed, if yez put your
coats on. I'll light yez down, but I ain't going to leave yez a light
for fear yez'd set fire to the place."

Saying good-night to the girls, who looked as if they thought their last
hour was come, we went to the lower room. It was quite empty, save for a
pile of fire wood and another of clean straw. Casting a stealthy glance
around, ere Peg withdrew the light, I was relieved to see that there
were no skulls in sight. We four boys snuggled down in the straw. We did
not expect to sleep, but we were very tired and before we knew it our
eyes were shut, to open no more till morning. The poor girls were not
so fortunate. They always averred they never closed an eye. Four things
prevented them from sleeping. In the first place Peg snored loudly; in
the second place the fitful gleams of firelight kept flickering over the
skull for half the night and making gruesome effects on it; in the third
place Peg's pillows and bedclothes smelled rankly of tobacco smoke; and
in the fourth place they were afraid the rat Peg had spoken of might
come out to make their acquaintance. Indeed, they were sure they heard
him skirmishing about several times.

When we wakened in the morning the storm was over and a young morning
was looking through rosy eyelids across a white world. The little
clearing around Peg's cabin was heaped with dazzling drifts, and we
boys fell t