Three o'clock in the morning saw Huldah's fire burning in the stove, her
water boiling in the kettle, her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron,
and quarter-past three saw the men come across from the barn, where they
had been shaking down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen
for the terrible onset of the day. It was bright star-light
above,--thank Heaven for that. This strip of three hundred thousand
square miles of snow cloud, which had been drifting steadily cast over a
continent, was, it seemed, only twenty hours wide,--say two hundred
miles, more or less,--and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen,
and all the heaven was washed black and clear. The men were well rested
by those five hours of hard sleep. They were fitly dressed for their
great encounter and started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do
their duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had come, that life
and death might be trembling in their hands. They did not take out the
pungs to-day, nor, of course, the horses. Such milk as they had
collected on St. Victoria's day they had stored already at the station,
and at Stacy's; and the best they could do to-day would be to break open
the road from the Four Corners to the station, that they might place as
many cans as possible there before the down-train came. From the house,
then, they had only to drive down their oxen that they might work with
the other teams from the Four Corners; and it was only by begging him,
that Huldah persuaded Reuben to take one lunch-can for them both. Then,
as Reuben left the door, leaving John to kiss her "good-by," and to tell
her not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night,--she gave to
John the full milk-can into which she had poured every drop of Carry's
milk, and said, "It will be one more; and God knows what child may be
crying for it now."

So they parted for eight and twenty hours; and in place of Huldah's
first state party of both families, she and Alice reigned solitary that
day, and held their little court with never a suitor. And when her
lunch-time came, Huldah looked half-mournfully, half-merrily, on her
array of dainties prepared for the feast, and she would not touch one of
them. She toasted some bread before the fire, made a cup of tea, boiled
an egg, and would not so much as set the table. As has been before
stated, this is the way with women.

And of the men, who shall tell the story of the pluck and endurance, of
the unf