gnaled her to help herself from the kettle that bubbled over
the fire, and she filled her bucket and disappeared, chattering volubly,
MacRae at her heels.

I finished my supper more deliberately. There was no occasion for me to
gobble my food and rush off to talk with Lyn Rowan. MacRae, I suspected,
would be inclined to monopolize her for the rest of the evening. So I
ate leisurely, and when done crawled under the wagon beside Piegan Smith
and gave myself up to cigarettes and meditation, while over his pipe
Piegan expressed a most unflattering opinion of the weather.

It was a dirty night, beyond question; one that gave color to Piegan's
prophesy that Milk River would be out of its banks if the storm held
till morning, and that Baker's freight-train would be stalled by mud and
high water for three or four days. I was duly thankful for the shelter
we had found. A tarpaulin stretched from wheel to wheel of the wagon
shut out the driving rain that fled in sheets before the whooping wind.
The lightning-play was hidden behind the drifting cloud-bank, for no
glint of it penetrated the gloom; but the cavernous thunder-bellow
roared intermittently, and a fury of rain drove slantwise against sodden
earth and creaking wagon-tops.

If the next two hours were as slow in passing, to MacRae and Lyn, as
they seemed to me, the two of them had time to dissect and discuss the
hopes and fears and errors of their whole existence, and formulate a new
philosophy of life. Piegan broke a long silence to remark sagely that if
Mac was putting in all this time talking to that "yaller-headed fairy,"
he was a plumb good stayer.

"They're old friends," I told him. "Mac knew her long ago; and all her
people."

"Well, he's in darned agreeable company," Piegan observed. "She's a
mighty fine little woman, far's I've seen. I dunno's I'd know when t'
jar loose m'self, if I knowed her an' she didn't object t' me hangin'
around. But seein' we ain't in on the reception, we might as well get
under the covers, eh? I reckon most everybody in camp's turned in."

Piegan had a bulky roll of bedding under the wagon. Spread to its full
width, it was ample for three ordinary men. We had just got out of our
outside garments and were snuggling down between the blankets when Mac
came slopping through the puddles that were now gathering in every
depression. He crawled under the wagon, shed some of his clothing, and
got into bed with us. But he didn't lie down until