hundred a year, she had prettier clothes than any of the
other girls, except Enid Royce, whose father was a rich man. Her
new hats and suede shoes were discussed and criticized year in
and year out. People said if she married Bayliss Wheeler, he
would soon bring her down to hard facts. Some hoped she would,
and some hoped she wouldn't. As for Claude, he had kept away from
Mrs. Farmer's cheerful parlour ever since Bayliss had begun to
drop in there. He was disappointed in Gladys. When he was
offended, he seldom stopped to reason about his state of feeling.
He avoided the person and the thought of the person, as if it
were a sore spot in his mind.

XVII

It had been Mr. Wheeler's intention to stay at home until spring,
but Ralph wrote that he was having trouble with his foreman, so
his father went out to the ranch in February. A few days after
his departure there was a storm which gave people something to
talk about for a year to come.

The snow began to fall about noon on St. Valentine's day, a soft,
thick, wet snow that came down in billows and stuck to
everything. Later in the afternoon the wind rose, and wherever
there was a shed, a tree, a hedge, or even a clump of tall weeds,
drifts began to pile up. Mrs. Wheeler, looking anxiously out from
the sitting-room windows, could see nothing but driving waves of
soft white, which cut the tall house off from the rest of the
world.

Claude and Dan, down in the corral, where they were provisioning
the cattle against bad weather, found the air so thick that they
could scarcely breathe; their ears and mouths and nostrils were
full of snow, their faces plastered with it. It melted constantly
upon their clothing, and yet they were white from their boots to
their caps as they worked,--there was no shaking it off. The air
was not cold, only a little below freezing. When they came in for
supper, the drifts had piled against the house until they covered
the lower sashes of the kitchen windows, and as they opened the
door, a frail wall of snow fell in behind them. Mahailey came
running with her broom and pail to sweep it up.

"Ain't it a turrible storm, Mr. Claude? I reckon poor Mr. Ernest
won't git over tonight, will he? You never mind, honey; I'll wipe
up that water. Run along and git dry clothes on you, an' take a
bath, or you'll ketch cold. Th' ole tank's full of hot water for
you." Exceptional weather of any kind always delighted Mahailey.

Mrs. Wheeler met Claude at