and farm, but the rich men, and in some cases their own
supineness, had been too strong for them; and while they waited their
scanty capital melted away. Now, with most of them it had almost gone, and
they were left without the means to commence the fight in spring.

Breckenridge saw the shadow in Grant's face, and touched his arm. "I'll go
in and give the man his dollars, Larry," he said. "You have had about as
much worry as is good for you to-day."

Grant shook his head. "I've no use for shutting my eyes so I can't see a
thing when I know it's there."

He stepped out of the sleigh and went into the shanty. The place had one
room, and, though a stove stood in the midst of it and the snow that kept
some of the frost out was piled to the windows, it was dank and chill.
Only a little dim light crept in, and it was a moment or two before Grant
saw the man who sat idle by the stove with a clotted bandage round his
leg. He was gaunt, and clad in jean patched with flour-bags, and his face
showed haggard under his bronze. Behind him on a rude birch-branch couch
covered with prairie hay a woman lay apparently asleep beneath a tattered
fur coat.

"What's the matter with her?" Grant asked.

"I don't quite know. She got sick 'most two weeks ago, and talks of a pain
that only leaves her when she's sleeping. One of the boys drove in to the
railroad for the doctor, but he's busy down there. Any way, it would have
taken him 'most a week to get here and back, and I guess he knew I hadn't
the dollars to pay him with."

Grant recognized the hopeless evenness of the tone, but Breckenridge, who
was younger, did not.

"But you can't let her lie here without help of any kind," he said.

"Well," said the man slowly, "what else can I do?"

Breckenridge could not tell him, and appealed to his comrade. "We have got
to take this up, Larry. She looks ill."

Grant nodded. "I have friends down yonder who will send that doctor out,"
he said. "Here are your dollars from the fund. Ten of them this time."

The man handed him one of the bills back. "If you want me to take more
than five you'll have to show your book," he said. "I've been finding out
how you work these affairs, Larry."

Grant only laughed, but Breckenridge turned to the speaker with an
assumption of severity that was almost ludicrous in his young face.

"Now, don't you make yourself a consumed ass," he said. "You want those
dollars considerably more than we do, and we've got