's my put-in; only
it's any man's business to see that women and kids don't freeze to
death. And by the humpin' hyenas--"

With her lips in a straight line, her eyes very hard and bright and
with a consciousness of heaping coals of fire on the head of an enemy
of her house, Mary Hope had twisted a corner of her handkerchief into
a point, moistened it by the simple and primitive method of placing
the point between her lips, and was preparing to remove the dirt from
Tom's watering eye, the ball of which was a deep pink from irritation.
But Tom swung abruptly away from her, went stilting on his high heels
to the door, pulled it open with a yank and rounded the corner where
the four Boyle children stood leaning against the house, their chilled
fingers clasped together so that two hands made one fist, their teeth
chattering while they discussed the Swedes and tried to mimic
Christian's very Swedish accent.

"_Og_ is _and_," said Minnie Boyle. "And _skoll_ is _shall_. Swede's
easy. And _med_ means _with_--"

"Aw, it's just the way they try to say it in English," Fred Boyle
contradicted. "It ain't Swede--but gee, when the Scotch and the Swede
goes in the air to-morrow, I bet there'll be fun. If Mary Hope tries
to lick Chris--"

"You kids straddle your cayuses and hit for home," Tom interrupted
them. "There ain't going to be any more school to-day. Them your
horses in the shed? Well, you hump along and saddle up and beat it.
Go!"

He did not speak threateningly, at least he did not speak angrily. But
the four Boyle children gave him one affrighted glance and started on
a run for the corral, looking back over their shoulders now and then
as if they expected a spatter of bullets to follow them.

At the corral gate Minnie Boyle stopped and turned as though she meant
to retrace her steps to the house, but Tom waved her back. So Minnie
went home weeping over the loss of a real dinner-bucket and a slate
sponge which she was afraid the Swedes might steal from her if they
came earlier to school than she.

When Tom turned to reenter the shack for a final word with Mary Hope,
and to let her give first aid to his eye if she would, he found that
small person standing just behind him with set lips and clenched fists
and her hair blowing loose from its hairpins.

"Mr. Tom Lorrigan, you can just call those children back!" she cried,
her lips bluing in the cold gale that beat upon her. "Do you think
that with all your lawlessness yo