bout their work, setting the table, "bilin' the tea," and frying the
bacon. When Red McWha came in from the barn, and stamped the snow from
his feet, Rosy-Lilly said "Hush!" laid her finger on her lip, and
glanced meaningly at the moveless shape in the bunk.

"We mus' let 'im sleep, Rosy-Lilly says," decreed Johnson, with an
emphasis which penetrated McWha's unsympathetic consciousness, and
elicited a non-committal grunt.

When supper was ready, Rosy-Lilly hung around him for a minute or two
before dragging her chair up to the table. She evidently purposed
paying him the compliment of sitting close beside him and letting him
cut her bacon for her. But finding that he would not even glance at
her, she fetched a deep sigh, and took her place beside Johnson. When
the meal was over and the dishes had been washed up, she let Johnson
put her to bed in her little bunk behind the stove. She wanted to kiss
her father for good-night, as usual; but when Johnson insisted that to
do so might wake him up, and be bad for him, she yielded tearfully;
and they heard her sobbing herself to sleep.

For nearly an hour the two men smoked in silence, their steaming feet
under the stove, their backs turned towards the long, unstirring shape
in the big bunk. At last Johnson stood up and shook himself.

"Well," he drawled, "I s'pose we mus' be doin' the best we kin fer
poor old Joe."

"He ain't left us no ch'ice!" snapped McWha.

"We can't leave him here in the house," continued Johnson, irresolutely.

"No, no!" answered McWha. "He'd ha'nt it, an' us, too, ever after,
like as not. We got to give 'im lumberman's shift, till the Boss kin
send and take 'im back to the Settlement for the parson to do 'im up
right an' proper."

So they rolled poor Joe Godding up in one of the tarpaulins which
covered the sleds, and buried him deep in the snow, under the big elm
behind the cabin, and piled a monument of cordwood above him, so that
the foxes and wild cats could not disturb his lonely sleep, and
surmounted the pile with a rude cross to signify its character. Then,
with lighter hearts, they went back to the cabin fire, which seemed to
burn more freely now that the grim presence of its former master had
been removed.

"Now what's to be done with the kid--with Rosy-Lilly?" began Johnson.

Red McWha took his pipe from his mouth, and spat accurately into the
crack of the grate to signify that he had no opinion on that important
subject.

"They