the bushes around us so as to make a sort of booth which may save us
from freezing."

She silently did as he directed, and he proceeded to pile the brush
which they had torn up on the tops of the bushes left standing around
the spot where they were, thus making a circular wall about three feet
high. Over the top he managed to draw together two or three bushes, and
the improvised wigwam was complete.

The moonlight penetrated the loose roof sufficiently to reveal to each
other the faces and figures of the two occupants as they sat in opposite
corners as far apart as possible, she cold and miserable, he cold and
sulky, and both silent. And, as if to mock him, the idea kept recurring
to his mind how romantic and delightful, in spite of the cold and
discomfort, the situation would be if she had only said Yes, instead of
No, that afternoon. People have odd notions sometimes, and it actually
seemed to him that his vexation with her for destroying the pleasure of
the present occasion was something quite apart and in addition to his
main grievance against her. It might have been so jolly, and now she had
spoiled it. He could have boxed her pretty little ears.

She wondered why he did not try to light a fire, but she wouldn't ask
him another thing if she died. In point of fact, he knew the sagebrush
would not burn. Suddenly the wind blew fiercer, there came a rushing
sound, and the top and walls of the wigwam were whisked off like a
flash, and as they staggered to their feet, buffeted by the whirling
bushes, a cloud of fine alkali-dust enveloped them, blinding their eyes,
penetrating their ears and noses, and setting them gasping, sneezing and
coughing spasmodically. Then, like a puff of smoke, the suffocating
storm was dissipated, and when they opened their smarting eyes there was
nothing but the silent, glorious desolation of the ghostly desert around
them, with the snow-peaks in the distance glittering beneath the moon. A
sand-spout had struck them, that was all--one of the whirling
dust-columns which they had admired all day from the car-windows.

Wretched enough before both for physical and sentimental reasons, this
last experience quite demoralized Miss Dwyer, and she sat down and
cried. Now, a few tears, regarded from a practical, middle-aged point of
view, would not appear to have greatly complicated the situation, but
they threw Lombard into a panic. If she was going to cry, something must
be done. Whether anything c