mented ironically.

"Smelt like an Injun tepee," said the clerk, sourly.

"It's a wonder to me fellers don't notice theirselves," Bowers observed.
"But they never seem to."

A weaving figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A
thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a
drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold
steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on
to the end of the block and turned the corner.

The Toomeys had lost no time in retiring after the entertainment, for
the house, upon their return, was like a refrigerator. Almost instantly
Toomey was slumbering tranquilly, but Mrs. Toomey had symptoms which she
recognized as presaging hours of wakefulness. The unwonted excitement of
being out in the evening had much to do with her restlessness, but
chiefly it came from thinking of the cook stove. Of course she could see
the force of Jap's argument as to the necessity of keeping up
appearances by being seen in public places and spending money as though
there was more where that came from, yet she wondered if it really
deceived anybody.

And supposing Teeters foreclosed the mortgage! It seemed as though they
were slipping week by week, day by day, deeper into the black depths at
the bottom of which was actual beggary. Her nervousness increased as her
imagination painted darker and darker pictures until she longed to
scream for the relief it would have afforded her. The single hope was
Mormon Joe's Kate and her promise, and that was too fantastic and
farfetched to dare count on. It was not logical to suppose that a man
whom Jap had quarreled with and insulted would come to their rescue even
if he could afford to do so, which she doubted.

How still it was--the eloquent stillness of terrible cold! The town was
soundless. Chickens humped in their feathers were freezing on their
roosts, horses and cows tied in their stalls were suffering, and, as
always, she visualized the desolate white stretches where hungry
coyotes, gaunt and vigilant, padded along the ridges, and horses and
cattle, turned out to shift for themselves, huddled shivering in the
gulches and under the willows.

She knew from the snapping and cracking of lumber and metal about the
house that it was growing colder, and she drew the covers closer. Oh,
what a country to live in! Whatever was to become of them! Her teeth
chattered.

She thought she heard foots