, fell with a faintly stinging
touch, and the circle of warmth about the fire grew less wide each hour.
"If the horses don't all freeze we'll be in luck," said he.

The stove roared as a chained leopard might do in answer to a lion
outside. Slender mice came from their dark corners and skittered across
the floor before the silent men, their sleek sides palpitating with
timorous excitement.

Bailey hovered over the stove, trying to figure up some accounts. Rivers
sat beside Blanche. With watchful care he kept her shawl upon her
shoulders and her feet wrapped in a blanket. He spoke to her now and
then in a voice inaudible to Bailey, who studied them with an occasional
keen glance.

"Well, now," he said, at last, "no use sitting here like images; we
might as well turn in. Jim, you take the bunk over there; and, Mrs.
Burke, you occupy the bed. I'll make up a shake-down here by the stove
and keep the fire going."

Rivers sullenly acquiesced, and Blanche lay down without removing her
outside garments, in the same bed in which she had slept that first
night in this wild land--that beautiful, buoyant spring night. How far
away it all was now!

Rivers heaped blankets upon her and tenderly tucked her in, whispered
good-night, and without a word to Bailey rolled himself in a fur robe and
stretched himself on his creaking, narrow couch.

So, in the darkness, while the storm intensified with shrieking, wild
voices, with whistling roar and fluttering tumult, Bailey gave his whole
thought to the elemental war within. His mind went out first to Burke,
who seemed some way to be the wronged man and chief sufferer, cut off
from help, alone in the cold and snow. By contrast, Rivers seemed
lustful and savage and treacherous.

Such a drama had never before come into Bailey's life. He had read of
somewhat similar cases in the papers, and had passed harsh judgment on
the man and woman. He had called the woman wanton and the man a villain,
but here the verdict was less easy to render. He liked Mrs. Burke, and
he loved his friend. He had looked into their faces many times during
the last six months without detecting any signs of degradation; on the
contrary, Blanche had apparently grown in womanly qualities; and as for
Jim, he had never been more manly, more generous and kind. If their acts
were crimes, why could they remain so clear of eye?

Without reaching a conclusion, he put the question from him and willed
himself to sleep.

Wh