"Ice is easy to get. Cook is what bothered me."

"That ought to be easy," said Burke. "Marry one."

"That's what I'm telling Bailey."

"Why don't you set the example. 'Stelle Clayton--now."

Rivers laughed, but his eyes, directed above Burke's head, met the unsmiling gaze of Blanche and sobered.

"Miss Clayton and I don't seem to get along first-rate," he said, and her face lighted again.

"Well, there are lots of others 'round here--lonesome girls. Blanche, can't you help Jim find a woman?"

Blanche did not answer lightly. She turned to her work. "I guess he can find one if he tries hard."

She was alluring as she kneaded the bread at the table. The flex of her waist and the swing of her skirts affected Rivers powerfully. He watched her in silence. Once she looked around, and the penetrative glance of his eyes filled her face with a rush of blood, and her eyes misted. A few minutes later he said "good-night" in an absent-minded way and went home.

Burke talked on, attempting to retain the cheery atmosphere which Rivers had brought in, but Blanche refused to answer, a sombre look on her sullen face. She seemed falling back into her old petulant, moody ways, and her husband suffered a corresponding dejection.

The elation was pa.s.sing out of his heart. Their picnic was at an end.

As the summer came on he was forced to go out ploughing for other settlers, and she was left alone a great deal. This was hard to bear.

There was so little to do in her little sun-smit cabin, and her trip to the post-office to get the mail and to meet the other settlers came to be a necessity. Like the other women, she put on her best hat and gown when she went to the store, and a low word of compliment from Rivers, as he handed out the mail, put a color into her face and a joy in her heart which her husband had never been able to arouse--indeed, it was after these visits that she was most cruel to Willard.

Sometimes she went with him to visit the neighbors, but not often. One day he said:

"I'm goin' to work f'r Jim Bradley to-day--want 'o go 'long?"

"I can't this mornin'. Perhaps I'll come over after dinner and walk home with you."

"I think you'll like Mrs. Bradley. She's got the purtiest little baby you ever saw." He did not look at her as he slung his pick and shovel on his shoulder. "Well, I'll tell her you'll be over about three o'clock."

"All right, tell her. Mebbe I'll come and mebbe I won't," she answered, ungraciously.

All that forenoon she went about her little cabin moodily, or sat silently by the open door watching the buffalo birds or larks as they came up about the barn for food. The green plain was all a-shimmer with pleasant heat. The plover, nesting in the gra.s.s, were nearly ready to bring forth their young--and the mother fox had already begun to lead her litter out upon the sunny hillside; only this childless woman seemed unhappy--sad.

As she came to the cabin of the Bradleys, Willard, sunk to his topknot in the ground, was burrowing like a badger in the clay, quite oblivious to the world above him. Some one was singing in the cabin, and, approaching the door, Blanche saw a picture which thrilled her with a strange, hungry, envious pa.s.sion.

A young woman was seated in the tiny room with her back to the door, her hand on a cradle, and as she rocked she sang softly. She was a plain little woman, the cradle was cheap and common, and her singing was only a monotonous chant; but the scene had a sort of sublimity--it was so old, so typical, and so beautiful.

The woman without the threshold stood for a long time staring straight before her, then turned and walked away homeward--past the weary, patient, heroic man toiling deep in the earth for her sake--leaving him without a glance or a word.

"You didn't get over to Mrs. Bradley's this afternoon, then?" Burke said, at supper.

"No," she replied, shortly, "I had some sewin' to do."

"Wal, go to-morrow. That's an awfully cute little chap--that baby," he went on, after a little. "Mrs. Bradley let him set on my knee to-day."

Then he sighed. "I wisht we had one like 'im, Blanche." After a pause, he said, "Mebbe G.o.d will send one some day."

She didn't appear to hear, and her face was dark with pa.s.sion.

IV

AUGUST

Now the settlers began to long for rain. Day after day vast clouds rose above the horizon, swift and portentous, domed like aerial mountains, only to pa.s.s with a swoop like the flight of silent, great eagles, followed by a trailing garment of dust. Often they lifted in the west with fine promise, only to go muttering and bellowing by to the north or south, leaving the sky and plain as beautiful, as placid, and as dry as before. The people grew anxious, and some of them became bitter, but the most of them kept up good courage, feeling certain that this was an unusual season.

One sultry day, while Rivers was on his way out to the store, he fell to studying the sky and air. On the prairie, as on the sea, one studies little else. There was something formidable in every sign. In the west a prodigious dome of blue-black cloud was rising, ragged at the edge, but dense and compact at the horizon.

"That means business," Rivers said to himself, and chirped to his team.

The air was close and hot. The southern wind had died away. There was scarcely a sound in all the landscape save the regular clucking of the wagon-wheels, the soft, rhythmical tread of the horses' feet, and the snapping buzz of the gra.s.shoppers rising from the weeds. Far away to the west lay the blue Coteaux, thirty miles distant, long, low, without break, like a wall. The sun was hidden by the cloud, and as he pa.s.sed a shanty Rivers saw the family eating their supper outside the door to escape the smothering heat.

He smiled as he saw the gleam of white dresses about the door of the store. As he drove up, a swarm of impatient folk came out to meet him.

The girls waved their handkerchiefs at him, and the men raised a shout.

"You're late, old man."

"I know it, but that makes me all the more welcome." He heaved the mail-bag to Bailey. "There's a letter for every girl in the crowd, I know, for I wrote 'em."

"We'll believe that when we see the letters," the girls replied.

He dismounted heavily. "Somebody put my team up. I'm hungry as a wolf and dry as a biscuit."

"The poor thing," said one of the girls. "He means a cracker."

Estelle Clayton came out of the store. "Supper's all ready for you, Mr.

Mail-Carrier. Come right in and sit down."

"I'm a-coming--now watch me," he replied, with intent to be funny.

The girls accompanied him into the little living-room.

"Oh, my, don't some folks live genteel? See the canned peaches!"

"And the canned lobster!"

"And the hot biscuit!"

"Sit down, Jim, and we'll pour the tea and dip out the peaches."

Rivers seated himself at the little pine table. "I guess you'd better whistle while you're dipping the peaches," he said, pointedly.

Miss Thompson dropped the spoon. "What impudence!"