he made haste to pile the cooking-stove with birch-bark,
kindling, and split sticks of dry, hard wood. At the touch of the
match the birch-bark caught and curled with a crisp crackling, and
with a roar in the strong draught the cunningly piled mass burst into
blaze. Dave Patton straightened, and his grey eyes turned to a little,
low bunk with high sides in the farther corner of the cabin.

Peering over the edge of the bunk with big, eager, blue eyes, was a
round little face framed in a tousled mop of yellow hair. A red glare
from the open draught of the stove caught the child's face. The moment
she saw her father looking at her she started to climb out of the
bunk; but Dave was instantly at her side, kissing her and tucking her
down again into the blankets.

"You mustn't git out o' bed, sweetie," he whispered, "till the house
gits warmed up a bit. An' don't wake mother yet."

The child's eyes danced with eagerness, but she restrained her voice
as she replied.

"I thought mebbe 'twas Christmis, popsie!" she whispered, catching his
fingers. "'T first, I thought mebbe you was Sandy Claus, popsie. Oh, I
wish Christmis 'ld hurry up!"

A look of pain passed over Dave Patton's face.

"Christmas won't be along fer 'most a week yit, sweetie!" he answered,
in the soft undertone that took heed of his wife's slumbers. "An'
anyways, how do you s'pose Sandy Claus is goin' to find his way, 'way
out into these great woods, through all this snow?"

"Oh, _popsie!_" cried the child, excitedly. Then, remembering, she
lowered her voice again to a whisper. "Don't you know Sandy Claus kin
go _any_wheres? Snow, an' cold, an' the--the--the big, black
woods--they don't bother _him_ one little, teenty mite. He knows where
to find me out here, jest's easy's in at the Settlements, popsie!"

The mother stirred in her bunk, wakened by the little one's voice. She
sat up, shivering, and pulled a red shawl about her shoulders. Her
eyes sought Dave's significantly and sympathetically.

"Mother's girl must try an' not think so much about Sandy Claus," she
pleaded. "I don't want her to go an' be disappointed. Sandy Claus
lives in at the Settlements, an' you know right well, girlie, he
couldn't git 'way out here, Christmas Eve, without neglecting all the
little boys an' girls at the Settlements. You wouldn't want _them all_
disappointed, just so's he could come to our little girl 'way off here
in the woods, what's got her father an' mother anyway