ried out with
terror at this strange wakening; and he had been beside her in an
instant.

"It's all right, partner. There's nothing to be afraid of," he had said
cheerfully, taking her little hand in his big warm one.

Her fears had slipped away at once. Nestling down into her rug, she had
smiled sleepily at him and fallen asleep with her cheek on her hand,
her other hand still in his.

While she had been asleep the snow-tides had filled the gulch, had
risen level with the top of the lower pane of the window. Nothing broke
the smoothness of its flow save the one track he had made in breaking a
way out. That he should have tried to find his way through such an
untracked desolation amazed her. He could never do it. No puny human
atom could fight successfully against the barriers nature had dropped
so sullenly to fence them. They were set off from the world by a
quarantine of God. There was something awful to her in the knowledge.
It emphasized their impotence. Yet, this man had set himself to fight
the inevitable.

With a little shudder she turned from the window to the cheerless room.
The floor was dirty; unwashed dishes were piled upon the table. Here
and there were scattered muddy boots and overalls, just as their owner,
the prospector, had left them before he had gone to the nearest town to
restock his exhausted supply of provisions. Disorder and dirt filled
the rough cabin, or so it seemed to her fastidious eye.

The inspiration of the housewife seized her. She would surprise him on
his return by opening the door to him upon a house swept and garnished.
She would show him that she could be of some use even in such a
primitive topsy-turvy world as this into which Fate had thrust her
willy-nilly.

First, she carried red live coals on a shovel from the fireplace to the
cook-stove, and piled kindling upon them till it lighted. It was a new
experience to her. She knew nothing of housework; had never lit a fire
in her life, except once when she had been one of a camping party. The
smoke choked her before she had the lids back in their places, but
despite her awkwardness, the girl went about her unaccustomed tasks
with a light heart. It was for her new-found hero that she played at
housekeeping. For his commendation she filled the tea-kettle, enveloped
herself in a cloud of dust as she wielded the stub of a broom she
discovered, and washed the greasy dishes after the water was hot. A
childish pleasure suffused her.