ution, while
Bailey prepared supper.

"The storm is sure to end to-night," he said, as they were preparing for
sleep. As before, Blanche lay down upon the bed, Rivers took the bunk,
and Bailey camped upon the floor, content to see his partner well
bestowed.

Blanche, unable to sleep, lay for a long time listening to the storm,
thinking disconnectedly on the past and the morrow. The strain upon her
was twisting her toward insanity. The never-resting wind appalled her.
It was like the iron resolution of the two men. She saw no end to this
elemental strife. It was the cyclone of July frozen into snow, only more
relentless, more persistent--a tornado of frost. It filled her with such
awe as she had never felt before. It seemed as if she _must not
sleep_--that she must keep awake for the sake of the little heart of
which she had been made the guardian.

As she lay thus a sudden mysterious exaltation came upon her, and she
grew warm and happy. She cared no longer for any man's opinion of her.
She was a mother, and God said to her, "Be peaceful and hopeful." Light
fell around her, and the pleasant odors of flowers. She looked through
sunny vistas of oaks and apple-trees. Bees hummed in the clover, and
she began to sing with them, and her low, humming song melted into the
roar of the storm. She saw birds flying like butterflies over fields of
daisies, and her song grew louder. It became sweet and maternal--full of
lullaby cadences. As she lay thus, lovely and careless and sinless as a
prattling babe, her eyes fixed upon the gleam of lights in the dark, a
shaking hand was laid on her shoulder, and Rivers spoke in anxious
voice:

"What is it, Blanche?--are you sick?"

She looked at him drowsily, and at last slowly said: "No, Jim--I am
happy. See my baby there, in the sunshine! Isn't she lovely?"

The man grew rigid with fear, and the hair of his head moved. He thought
her delirious--dying, perhaps, of cold. He gathered her hands in his
and fell upon his knees.

"What is it, dear? What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing," she murmured.

"You're sure you're not worse? Can't I help you?"

She did not reply, and he knelt there holding her hands until she sank
into unmistakably quiet sleep.

He feared the unspeakable. He imagined her taken in premature
childbirth, brought on by exposure and excitement, and, for the first
time, he took upon himself the burden of his guilt. The thought of
danger to her had not hitherto trou