with which he strode past me makes me feel sure
that he has been conversing with his lady-love. But what difference
does it make? What difference does _anything_ make? In the matter of
women, I have just remembered, what may be one man's meat is another
man's poison. But I can't understand these reversible people, like
house-rugs, who can pretend to love two ways at once.... I only know
one man, in all the wide world, who has not shattered my faith in his
kind. He is one of those neck-or-nothing men who never change.

There are many ranchers, out in this country, who keep what they call
a blizzard-line. It's a rope that stretches in winter from their
house-door to their shed or their stable, a rope that keeps them from
getting lost when a blizzard is raging. Peter, I know, has been my
blizzard-line. And in some way, please God, he will yet lead me back
to warmth. He is himself out there in the cold, accepting it, all the
time, with the same quiet fortitude that a Polar bear might. But he
will thole through, in the end. For with all his roughness he can be
unexpectedly adroit. Whinstane Sandy once told me something he had
learned about Polar bears in his old Yukon days: with all their
heaviness, they can go where a dog daren't venture. If need be, they
can flatten out and slide over a sheet of ice too thin to support a
running dog. And the drift-ice may be widening, but I refuse to give
up my hope of hope. "Let the mother go," as the Good Book says, "that
it may be well with thee!" ...

I have just remembered that I tried to shoot my husband once. He may
make use of _that_, when he gets down to Virginia City. It might, in
fact, help things along very materially. And Susie's eyes will
probably pop out, when she reads it in a San Francisco paper....

I've thought of so many clever things I should have said to Alsina
Teeswater. As I look back, I find it was the other lady who did about
all the talking. There were old ulcerations to be cleared away, of
course, and I let her talk about the same as you let a dentist work
with his fingers in your mouth.... But now I must go up and make sure
my Poppsy is safely tucked in. I have just opened the door and looked
out. It is storming wretchedly. God pity any little boys who are
abroad on such a night!

_Two Hours Later_

It is well past midnight. But there is no sleep this night for Chaddie
McKail. I am too happy to sleep. I am too happy to act sane. For my
boy is safe