swayed beneath the bitter blasts stiff with frost, and the moan of swinging boughs in a far-off willow bluff.  It was these things that guided him, for he had left the rutted trail, and here and there the swish beneath the wheels told of taller grass, while the bluff ran black athwart the horizon when that had gone.  Then twigs crackled beneath them as the horses picked their way amidst the shadowy trees stunted by a ceaseless struggle with the wind, and Winston shook the creeping drowsiness from him when they came out into the open again, for he knew it is not advisable for any man with work still to do to fall asleep under the frost of that country.

Still, he grew a trifle dazed as the miles went by, and because of it indulged in memories he had shaken oft at other times.  They were blurred recollections of the land he had left eight years ago, pictures of sheltered England, half-forgotten music, the voices of friends who no longer remembered him, and the smiles in a girl’s bright eyes.  Then he settled himself more firmly in the driving seat, and with numbed fingers sought a tighter grip of the reins as the memory of the girl’s soft answer to a question he had asked brought his callow ambitions back.

He was to hew his way to fortune in the West, and then come back for her, but the girl who had clung to him with wet cheeks when he left her had apparently grown tired of waiting, and Winston sent back her letters in return for a silver-printed card.  That was six years ago, and now none of the dollars he had brought into the country remained to him.  He realized, dispassionately and without egotism, that this was through no fault of his, for he knew that better men had been crushed and beaten.

It was, however, time he had done with these reflections, for while he sat half-dazed and more than half-frozen the miles had been flitting by, and now the team knew they were not very far from home.  Little by little their pace increased, and Winston was almost astonished to see another bluff black against the night ahead of him.  As usual in that country, the willows and birches crawled up the sides and just showed their heads above the sinuous crest of a river hollow.  It was very dark when the wagon lurched in among them, and it cost the man an effort to discern the winding trail which led down into the blackness of the hollow.  In places the slope was almost precipitous, and it behooved him to be careful of the horses, which could not be replaced.  Without them he could not plow in spring, and his life did not appear of any especial value in comparison with theirs just then.