A Little Norsk

"Well, lay her down now, an' eat some thin' y'rself, while I go out an' look after the chores. Lord! it makes me crawl to think of that woman layin' there in the shanty all alone!" he turned and said in a peculiar hesitating voice. He shivered a little as he spoke. "Say, did y' shut the door?"

"Yes: an' it shuts hard. The wind n'r wolves can't open it."

"That's good. I couldn't sleep nights if I thought the coyotes could get in." Bert's imagination seized upon that lonely cabin and the figure lying cold as iron upon the bed. It appealed to him more than to Anson.

By four o'clock it was dark, and the lamp was lighted when Bert came in, bringing an immense load of hay-twists. The ferocious wind, as if exulting in its undisputed sway over the plain, raved in ceaseless fury around the cabin, and lashed the roof with a thousand stinging streams of snow. The tiny shanty did not rock; it shuddered as if wit