just this one night. He
went on, coming soon to barbed wire along the way, and presently to a
gap in it that let him in among the trees which concealed the house.

It was a small, low cabin, quite buried among the trees, no light
showing as Mackenzie drew near, although the voice of the woman still
rose in the plaintive monotony of her song.

Mackenzie put as much noise into his arrival as was possible by
walking heavily, knowing very well that a surprise by night is not a
good beginning for a claim of hospitality. The woman must have heard,
for her song ceased in the middle of a word. At the corner of the
house Mackenzie saw a dim light falling through an open door, into
which the shadow of the woman came.

A little way from the door Mackenzie halted, hat in hand, giving the
woman good evening. She stood within the threshold a few feet, the
light of the lantern hanging in an angle of the wall over her, bending
forward in the pose of one who listened. She was wiping a plate, which
she held before her breast in the manner of a shield, stiffly in both
hands. Her eyes were large and full of a frightened surprise, her pale
yellow hair was hanging in slovenly abandon down her cheeks and over
her ears.

She was a tall woman, thin of frame, worn and sad, but with a faded
comeliness of face, more intelligence apparent in it than is commonly
shown by Scandinavian women of the peasant class who share the labors
and the loads of their men on the isolated homesteads of the
Northwest. She stood so, leaning and staring, her mouth standing open
as if the song had been frightened out so quickly that it had no time
to shut the door.

"Good evening, madam," said Mackenzie again.

She came out of her paralysis of fright and surprise at the assuring
sound of his voice. He drew nearer, smiling to show his friendly
intention, the lantern light on the close, flat curls of his fair
hair, which lay damp on temples and forehead.

Tall after his kind was this traveler at her door, spare of flesh,
hollow of cheeks, great of nose, a seriousness in his eyes which
balanced well the marvelous tenderness of his smile. Not a handsome
man, but a man whose simple goodness shone in his features like a
friendly lamp. The woman in the door advanced a timid step; the color
deepened in her pale and melancholy face.

"I thought it was my man," she said, her voice soft and slow, a
labored effort in it to speak without the harsh dialect so apparent in