Chapter 3

"Oh no, thank you. There's nothing to do till morning, anyway. We kept the bed dry, and so we can sleep." She smiled on him with something happy hidden in the tones of her voice. She was embarrassed, but not afraid. She trusted him perfectly, and he was exalted by that trust.

"Well, I'll be over in the morning and see how badly damaged you are. I couldn't go to bed till I knew you were all right."

"Thank you. You're very kind."

He went out with a feeling that Carrie was trying hard not to laugh at him. He was sure he heard a smothered giggle as he went down the slope. He glowed with admiration for Estelle, so frank, so womanly. They seemed to have drawn closer to each other in that fifteen minutes' talk than in all the preceding months. In the joy of this deepening friendship he splashed contentedly back to the store, unheeding the pools beneath his feet.

V

NOVEMBER

September and October passed before the surveyors, long looked for, came through, and three months dragged out their slow length before the pre-emptors could file and escape from their claims.

By the first of November the wonder had gone out of the life of the settlers. One by one the novelties and beauties of the plain had passed away or grown familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The prairie-chicken's piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity, and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away in the bright midday sun.

Many of the squatters by this time had spent their last dollar, and there was little work for them to do. Each man, like his neighbor, was waiting to "prove up." They had all lived on canned beans and crackers since March, and they now faced three months more of this fare. Some of them had no fuel, and winter was rapidly approaching.

The vast, treeless level, so alluring in May and June, had become an oppressive weight to those most sensitive to the weather, and as the air grew chill and the skies overcast, the women turned with apprehensive faces to the untracked northwest, out of which the winds swept pitilessly cold and keen. The land of the straddle-bug was gray and sad.

One day a cold rain mixed with sleet came on, and when the sun set, partly clear, the Coteaux to the west rose like a marble wall, crenelated and shadowed in violet, radiant as the bulwarks of some celestial city; but it made the thoughtful husband look keenly at the thin walls of his cabin and wonder where his fuel was to come from. In this unsheltered land, where coal was high and doctors far away, winter was a dreaded enemy.

The depopulation of the newly claimed land began. Some of the girls went back never to return; others settled in Boomtown, with intent to visit their claims once a month through the winter; but a few, like the Burkes, remained in their little shanties, which looked still more like dens when sodded to the eaves. The Clayton girls flitted away to Wheatland, leaving the plain desolately lonely to Bailey. One by one the huts grew smokeless and silent, until at last the only English-speaking woman within three miles was old Mrs. Bussy, who swore and smoked a pipe, and talked like a man with bronchitis. She was not an attractive personality, and Mrs. Burke derived little comfort from her presence.

Willard was away a great deal teaming, working desperately to get something laid up for the winter. The summer excursion, with its laughter, its careless irresponsibility, had become a deadly grapple with the implacable forces of winter. The land of the straddle-bug had become a menacing desert, hard as iron, pitiless as ice.

Now the wind had dominion over the lonely women, wearing out their souls with its melancholy moanings and its vast and wordless sighs. Its voices seemed to enter Blanche Burke's soul, filling it with hunger never felt before. Day after day it moaned in her ears and wailed about the little cabin, rousing within her formless desires and bitter despairs. Obscure emotions, unused powers of reason and recollection came to her. She developed swiftly in sombre womanhood.

Sometimes Mrs. Bussy came across the prairie, sometimes a load of land-seekers asked for dinner, but mainly she was alone all the long, long days. She spent hours by the window watching, waiting, gazing at the moveless sod, listening to the wind-voices, companioned only by her memories. She began to perceive that their emigration had been a bitter mistake, but her husband had not yet acknowledged it, and she honestly tried not to reproach him for it. Nevertheless, she had moments of bitterness when she raged fiercely against him.

Little things gave her opportunity. He came home late one day. She greeted him sullenly. He began to apologize:

"I didn't intend to stay to supper, but Mrs. Bradley--"

"Mrs. Bradley! Yes, you can go and have a good time with Mrs. Bradley, and leave me here all alone to rot. It'd serve you right if I left you to enjoy this fine home alone."

He trembled with agony and weakness.

"Oh, you don't mean that, Blanche--"

"For Heaven's sake, don't call me pet names. I'm not a child. If I'd had any sense I'd never have come out here. There's nothing left for us but just freeze or starve. What did we ever leave Illinois for, anyway?"

He sank back into a corner in gentle, sorrowful patience, waiting for her anger to wear itself out.

While they sat there in silence they heard the sound of hoofs on the frozen ground, and a moment later Bailey's pleasant voice arose: "Hullo, the house!" Burke went to the door, and Blanche rose to meet the visitor with a smile, the knot in her forehead smoothed out. There was no alloy in her pure respect and friendship for Bailey.

He came in cheerily, his hearty voice ringing with health and good-will. He took her hand in his with a quick, strong grip, and the light of his brown eyes brought a glow to her heart.

"I've come over to see if you don't want to go to the city to-morrow? I've got Joe Pease to stay in the store, and so I thought I'd take an outing."

Burke looked at his wife; she replied, eagerly:

"I should like to go, Mr. Bailey, very much. Our old team is so feeble we daren't drive so far. I'm afraid every time old Dick stumbles he'll fall down on the road."

"We'll have to get back to-morrow night," Burke said.

"Oh, we'll do that all right," replied Bailey.

As she planned the trip with tremulous eagerness, Bailey studied her. She was paler than he had ever seen her, and more refined and thoughtful, scarcely recognizable as the high-colored, powerful woman for whom he had helped build the shanty in March. There were times now when it seemed as if she were appealing to him, and his heart ached with undefined sorrow as he looked about her prison-like home.

For half an hour she chatted with something of her old-time vivacity, but when he went out her face resumed its gloomy lines, and she silenced her husband with a glance when he attempted to keep up the cheerful conversation.

The next morning, as she was dressing, she turned sick and faint for a moment. Her breath seemed to fail her, and she sat down, dizzy and weak. She was alone, but the red blood came swelling back into her face as she waited.

She grew better soon, and rose and went about her work. Then the excitement and pleasure of her trip, the expectation of meeting Rivers, helped her to put her weakness away.

Bailey called for the Clayton girls, who were making their monthly visit to their claim, and Mrs. Burke, seeing the shine of a lover's joy in Bailey's face, and the clear, unwavering trust of a pure, good girl in Estelle's gray eyes, fell silent, and the shadow of her own sorrow came back upon her face.

The ride seemed short, and the town at the end wondrously exciting. Rivers met them at the hotel, and insisted on their being his guests during their stay. They had a jolly supper together, after which they all went to the little town-hall to see a play. Blanche sat beside Rivers, and as she laughed at Si Peasley and his misadventures in the city she was girlishly happy. It was not very much of an entertainment, but in contrast with life in a sod shanty it was all very exciting for her.

"Oh, I wish we could live in town this winter!" she sighed in Rivers' ear.

"You can," he answered, with significant inflection.

Altogether, the evening was one of deep pleasure for Blanche. She enjoyed the companionship of the Clayton girls, who had never been so friendly and sympathetic with her before. They invited her to spend the night with them, which pleased her very much, and they all sat up till one o'clock, talking upon all sorts of tremendously interesting feminine subjects.

Next morning Estelle went with her while she did a little shopping--pitifully little, for she only had a dollar or two to spend--while Bailey loaded up his team. At last, and all too soon, her outing ended, and she faced the west with heavy heart.

Poor Willard also felt the menace of the desolate, wild prairie, but he had no conception of the tumult of regret and despair which filled his wife's mind as she climbed into the wagon for their return journey. She was like a prisoner whose parole had ended.

The Clayton girls said good-bye with pity in their voices, and Rivers sought opportunity to say, privately: "I hate to see you back out there on the border. If you need anything, let me know."

"All aboard!" called Bailey, as he took his reins in hand.

A bitter blast and a gray sky confronted them as they drove out of the town, and not even Bailey's abounding vitality and good-humor could keep Blanche from sinking back into gloomy silence. The wind was keen, strong, prophetic of the snows which were already gathering far in the north, and the journey seemed endless; and when late in the afternoon they drew up before the squat, low hovel in which she was to spend a long and desolate winter, Blanche was shivering violently, and so depressed that she could not coherently thank the kindly young fellow who had afforded her this brief respite from her care. She staggered into the house, so stiff she could scarcely walk, and sank into a chair to sob out her loneliness and despair, while Willard pottered about building a fire on their icy hearth.

Willard Burke had a question to ask, and that night, as they were sitting at their poor little table, he plucked up courage to begin:

"Blanche, I want to ask you something--that is, I've been kind o' noticin' you--" Here he paused, intending to be sly and suggestive. "Seems to me this climate ain't so bad, after all; you complain a good deal, but seems to me you hadn't ought to." He trembled while he smiled. "It's done a lot for you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her face flushing with confusion.

"I mean"--he tried to laugh--"your best dress seems pretty tight for you. Oh, if it only should be--"

"Don't be a fool," she angrily replied. "If anything like that happens, I'll let you know."

His face lengthened, and the smile went out of his eyes. He accepted her tone as final, too loyal to doubt her word. "Don't be mad; I was only in hopes." He rose after a silence and went out with downcast head.

She sat rigidly, feeling as if the blood were freezing in her hands and feet. The crisis was upon her. The time of her judgment was coming--and she was alone! She burned with anger against Rivers. Why had he waited and waited? "_He_ can put things off--he is a man, but I am the woman--I must suffer it all." The pain, the shame, the deadly danger--all were hers.

Burke returned, noisily, stamping his feet like a boy.

"It's snowin' like all git out," he said, "and I've got to rig up some kind of a sled. I reckon winter has come in earnest now, and our coal-pile is low."

He went to sleep with the readiness of a child, and as she lay listening to his quiet breath she remembered how easy it had once been for her to sleep. She had the same agony of pity for him that she would have felt for a child she had wronged malevolently.

The next day Mrs. Bussy came over. At her rap Blanche called, "Come in," but remained seated by the fire.

The old woman entered, knocking the snow off her feet like a man.

"How de do, neighbor?"

Blanche drew her shawl a little closer around her. "Not very well; sit down, won't you?"

"Can't stop. You don't seem very peart. I want to know what seems to be the trouble." Her keen eyes had never seemed so penetrating before. Blanche flushed and moved uneasily. She was afraid of the old creature, who seemed half-man, half-woman.

"Oh, I don't know. Rheumatism, I guess."

"That so? Well, this weather is 'nough to give anybody rheumatiz. I tell Ed--that's my boy--I tell Ed we made holy fools of ourselves comin' out here. I never see such a damn country f'r wind." She rambled on about the weather for some time, and at last rose. "Well, I wanted to borrow your wash-boiler; mine leaks like an infernal old sieve, and I dasen't go to town to get it mended for fear of a blow. What's trouble?"

Blanche suddenly put her hand to her side and grew white and rigid. Then the blood flamed into her cheeks, and the perspiration stood out on her forehead. She clinched her lips between her teeth and lay back in her chair.

"Ye look kind o' faint. Can't I do something for ye? Got any pain-killer? That's good, well rubbed in," volunteered the old woman.

"No, no, I--I'm all right now, it was just a sharp twinge, that's all--you'll find the boiler in the shed; I don't need it." Her tone was one of dismissal.

The old woman rose. "All right, I'll find it. Set still." As she went out she grinned--a mocking, sly, aggravating grin. "It's all right--nothin' to be ashamed of. I've had ten. I called _my_ first one pleurisy. It didn't fool any one, though." She cackled and creaked with laughter as she shut the door.

Blanche sat motionless, staring straight before her, while the fire died out and the room grew cold.

Her terror and shame gave way at last, and she allowed herself to dream of the mystical joy of maternity. She permitted herself to fancy the life of a mother in a sheltered and prosperous home. She felt in imagination the touch of little lips, the thrust of little hands, the cling of little arms. "My baby should come into a lovely, sun-lit room. It should have a warm, pretty cradle. It should--"

The door opened and her husband entered.

"Why, Blanche--what's the matter? You've let the fire go out. It's cold as blixen in here. You'll take cold, first you know."

VI

DECEMBER

Winter came late, but with a fury which appalled the strong hearts of the settlers. Most of them were from the wooded lands of the East, and the sweep of the wind across this level sod had a terror which made them quake and cower. The month of December was incredibly severe.

Day after day the thermometer fell so far below zero that no living thing moved on the wide, white waste. The snows seemed never at rest. One storm followed another, till the drifting, icy sands were worn as fine as flour. The house was like a cave. Its windows, thick with frost, let in only a pallid light at midday. There was little for Blanche to do, and there was nothing for her to say to Willard, who came and went aimlessly between the barn and house. His poor old team could no longer face the cold wind without danger of freezing, and so he walked to the store for the mail and the groceries. They lived on boiled potatoes and bacon, suffering like prisoners--jailed innocently. He hovered about the stove, feeding it twisted bundles of hay till he grew yellow with the tanning effect of the smoke, while Blanche cowered in her chair, petulant and ungenerous.

The winter deepened. There were many days when the sun shone, but the snow slid across the plain with a menacing, hissing sound, and the sky was milky with flying frost, and the horizon looked cold and wild; but these were merely the pauses between storms. The utter dryness of the flakes and the never-resting progress of the winds kept the drifts shifting, shifting.

"This is what you've dragged me into!" Blanche burst out, one desolate day after a week's confinement to the house. "This is your fine home--this dug-out! This is the climate you bragged about. I can't stay here any longer. Oh, my God, if I was only back home again!" She rose, and walked back and forth, her shawl trailing after her. "If I'd had any word to say about it, we never'd 'a' been out in this God-forsaken country."

He bowed his head to her passion and sat in silence, while she raged on.

"Do you know we haven't got ten pounds of flour in the house? And another blizzard likely? And no butter, either? What y' goin' to do? Let me starve?"

"I _did_ intend to go over to Bussy's and get back the flour they borrowed of us, but I'm a little afraid to go out to-day; it looks like another norther. The wind's rising, and old Tom--"

"But that's just the reason why you've got to go. We can't run such risks. We've got to eat or die--you ought to know that."

Burke rose, and began putting on his wraps. "I'll go over and see what I can squeeze out of old lady Bussy."

"Oh, this wind will drive me crazy!" she cried out. "Oh, I wish somebody would come!" She dropped upon the bed, sobbing with a hysterical catching of the breath. The wind was piping a high-keyed, mourning note on the chimney-top, a sound that rang echoing down through every hidden recess of her brain, shaking her, weakening her, till at last she turned upon her husband with wild eyes.

"Take me with you! I can't stay here any longer--I shall go crazy!" She turned her head to listen. "Isn't some one coming? Look out and see! I hear bells!"

Burke tried to soothe her in his timid, clumsy fashion.

"There, there, now--sit down. You ain't well, Blanche. I'll ask Mrs. Bussy to come--"

She suddenly seemed to remember something. "Don't talk to her. Go to Craig's. Don't go to Bussy's--please don't! I hate her. I won't be in her debt."

This pleading tone puzzled him, but he promised; and, hitching up his thin, old horses, drove around to the door of the shanty. Blanche came out, dressed to go with him, but when she felt the edge of the wind she shrank. Her lips turned blue and she cowered back against the side of the cabin, holding her shawl like a shield before her bosom. "I can't do it! It's too cold! I'd freeze to death. You'll have to go alone."

Burke was relieved. "Yes, you'd better stay," he said, and drove off.

Blanche crept back into the shanty and bent above the stove, shivering violently. She drew a long breath now and then like a grieving child. Life was over for her. She had reached the point where nothing mattered. She sat there until the sound of bells aroused her. "It's Jim!" she called, and rose to her feet, her face radiant with relief. Rivers came rushing up to the door in a two-horse sleigh and leaped out with a shout of greeting, though he could not see her at the frosted window.

A moment later he burst in, vigorous, smiling, defiant of the cold.

"Hello! All alone? How are you?"

A quick warmth ran through her chilled limbs, and she lifted her hands to him.

"Oh, Jim, I'm so glad you came!"

"Keep away--I'm all snow," he warningly called, as he threw off his cap and buffalo coat. "Now come to me," he said, and took her in his arms. "How are you, sweetheart? I can't kiss you--my mustache is all ice. Where's Burke?"

"Gone to Craig's."

He winked jovially while pulling the icicles from his long mustache.

"I thought I saw him driving across the ridge. I was on my way to the store, but when I saw his old rack-a-bone team I turned off to see you. How are you?" he asked, tenderly, and his voice swept away all her reserve.

"Oh, Jim, I'm not well. You must take me away, _right off_. I can't stay here another day--_not a day_."

He looked at her keenly.

"Why? What's the matter?"

She evaded his eyes.

"It's so lonesome here--" Then she dropped all evasion: "You know why--Jim, take me away. I can't live without you _now_. I'm going to be sick."

He understood her very well. His eyes fell and his face knotted in sudden gravity. "I was afraid of that--that's why I came. Yes, you must get out of here at once."

She understood him. "Oh, Jim, you won't leave me now, will you?"

"No. I didn't say anything about leaving you." He put his arm around her. "I'm not that kind of a man. You and I were built for each other--I felt that on that first ride. I guess it's up to me to take you out of this." He broke off his emotional utterance and grew keen and alert.

"I've been planning to go, and I'm almost ready--in fact, I could leave now without much loss, but I didn't come prepared for anything so sudden. My office furniture don't amount to much, and this team is Bailey's"--he mused a moment. "_Come!_" he said, with sudden resolution, "it's go now--we'll never have a better chance."

She turned white with dread--now that she neared the actual deed.

"Oh, Jim! I _wish_ there was some other way."

He was a little rough. Her feminine hesitation he could not sympathize with.

"Well, there isn't. We've got to get right out of this. Hurry on your things. The wind is rising, and we must make Wheatland by five o'clock. I came out to hold down my claim, but it ain't worth it. I reckon I've squeezed all the juice out of this lemon. This climate is a little boisterous for me."

He brought in a blanket and warmed it at the fire while she wrapped herself in cloak and shawl.

"I'd better write a little note to--him."

"What for? I've got nothing against him, except that he saw you first. But I guess he's out of the running now. It's you and me from this day on."

"I hate to go without saying good-bye," she said, tremulously. "He's always been good to me," she added, smitten with sudden realization of her husband's kindness.

He perceived that she was in earnest. "All right--only it does no good, and delays us. Every minute is valuable now. The outlook is owly."

The plain was getting gray as they came out of the door, and the woman shrank and shivered with an instant chill, but Rivers tenderly tucked the robe about her and leaped into the sleigh.

"Now boys, git!" he shouted to the humped and wind-ruffled team, and they sprang away into the currents of powdered snow, which were running along the ground in streams as smooth as oil and almost as silent.

The sleigh rose and fell over the ridges like a ship. Off in the west the sun was shining through a peculiar smoky cloud, gray-white, vapory, with glittering edges where it lay against the cold, yellow sky. Every sign was ominous, and the long drive seemed a desperate venture to the woman, but she trusted her lover as a child depends upon a father. She nestled close down under his left arm, clothed in its shaggy buffalo-skin coat, a splendid elation in her heart. She was at last with the strong man to whom she belonged.

This elation did not last long. Her sense of safety died slowly out, just as the blood chilled in her veins. She was not properly clothed, and her feet soon ached with cold, and she drew her breath through her teeth to prevent the utterance of moans of pain. She was never free now from the feeling of guardianship which is the delight and the haunting uneasiness of motherhood. "I must be warm," she thought, "for _its_ sake."

She heard his voice above.

"I never'll settle in a prairie country again--not but what I've done well enough as a land-agent, but there's no big thing here for anybody--nothing for the land-agent now."

"Oh, Jim, I'm so cold! I'm afraid I can't stand it!" she broke out, desperately.

"There, there!" he said, as if she were a child. "Cuddle down on my knees. Be brave. You'll get warmer soon as we turn south."