don't live in months
and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an earthquake
to do its work--it's seconds then.... P'r'aps dad won't even come
to-morrow," she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It never
seemed so long before, not even when he's been away a week." She laughed
bitterly. "Even bad company's better than no company at all. Sure. And
Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times. Mickey was
a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he'd have been better company if
he'd been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think
he would. Bad company doesn't put you off so."

There was a scratching at the inside of the door. "My, if I didn't
forget Shako," she said, "and he dying for a run!"

She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full
breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air
of the north in every motion--like his mistress also.

"Come, Shako, a run--a run!"

An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her
short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those
of any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for
she was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and
fed on its scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and
forwards they ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was
twenty-three, her eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands
thrown up in sheer excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her
face-brown, strong hair, wavy and plentiful.

Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her
hands. The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the
hands, however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them
honestly; for her mother was descended from an old family of the French
province. That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of
distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the
peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was--what she
had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It
was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to
compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody
of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she
suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her.

"Heel, Shako!" she sai