her. "I've seen a few things in the way of storms"
He broke off suddenly, the flame of conscious shame coming again hotly into his face. It began to sound like a boast, a bolstering up of the manhood in him that she had sneered upon and found without weight in the rude balance of that land.
But what could a cowman know of storm or hardship, who never had clung his watch to the ice-sheathed deck of a struggling ship! Incredible as it might seem to them, to her, other parts of the world than the cattle lands contained men. But deeds, not words, must prove him in her eyes.
"Yes, but there's a shelter on a ship," she said, unimpressed by his halted speech.
"What are the men doing while the cattle are dying of cold and starvation?" he inquired.
"What can they do?" she countered, resentful of the implied criticism. "There's nothing to be done but wait till it blows over."
"And then go out and count the dead," said he, keeping to himself the thought that it was all very noble and humane.
"They skin 'em if the wolves haven't torn the hides,—but it hardly ever pays," she said, no compassion in her for that great suffering, that slow death in unvoiced misery upon those bitter wilds. "But you wait here through one winter—that will be the best medicine for you, after all, You'll understand the hazards of this business then."
When Barrett parted with her she made apology for not offering the hospitality of the house. She seemed
