Sally in the loft over the kitchen."

And then again she laughed that meaningless laugh.

CHAPTER XI

Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had
settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed
except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the
front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were
coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered
through but dimly.

Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked
no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting
himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire;
he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or
thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to
him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding
by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help.

"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths
of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go
down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on
this yere letter."

The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader
experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own
lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the
words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing.

"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your
hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart,
let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and
it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself
above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm
not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what
his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy."

No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the
doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of
liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at
times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the
outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung
there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for
Sandy's sake." Not for his own--but for Sandy's sake always. And God
heard and upheld the weak creature.

Then came the