ist
flakes by dark, eddying thick out of a windless night. At daybreak it
lay a foot deep and snowing hard. Thenceforth there was no surcease. The
white, feathery stuff piled up and piled up, hour upon hour and day
after day, as if the deluge had come again. It stood at the cabin eaves
before the break came, six feet on the level. With the end of the storm
came a bright, cold sky and frost,--not the bitter frost of the high
latitudes, but a nipping cold that held off the melting rains and laid a
thin scum of ice on every patch of still water.

Necessarily, all work ceased. The donkey was a shapeless mound of white,
all the lines and gear buried deep. A man could neither walk on that
yielding mass nor wallow through it. The logging crew hailed the
enforced rest with open relief. Benton grumbled. And then, with the
hours hanging heavy on his hands, he began to spend more and more of his
time in the bunkhouse with the "boys," particularly in the long
evenings.

Stella wondered what pleasure he found in their company, but she never
asked him, nor did she devote very much thought to the matter. There was
but small cessation in her labors, and that only because six or eight of
the men drew their pay and went out. Benton managed to hold the others
against the thaw that might open up the woods in twenty-four hours, but
the smaller size of the gang only helped a little, and did not assist
her mentally at all. All the old resentment against the indignity of her
position rose and smoldered. To her the days were full enough of things
that she was terribly weary of doing over and over, endlessly. She was
always tired. No matter that she did, in a measure, harden to her work,
grow callously accustomed to rising early and working late. Always her
feet were sore at night, aching intolerably. Hot food, sharp knives, and
a glowing stove played havoc with her hands. Always she rose in the
morning heavy-eyed and stiff-muscled. Youth and natural vigor alone kept
her from breaking down, and to cap the strain of toil, she was soul-sick
with the isolation. For she was isolated; there was not a human being in
the camp, Katy John included, with whom she exchanged two dozen words a
day.

Before the snow put a stop to logging, Jack Fyfe dropped in once a week
or so. When work shut down, he came oftener, but he never singled Stella
out for any particular attention. Once he surprised her sitting with her
elbows on the kitchen table, her face buri