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shame to think what you must have overcome--before you accepted. But, my dear, don't fear I'll rush you into real wifehood--you know, like I did into marriage. All in good time, Lucinda, when you feel you know me as I am now, and love me, and want to come to me... That's all, little girl. Kiss me good night and go to your bed in our prairie-schooner."
    Lucinda did as she was bidden, relieved and comforted as she had not thought possible except after long trial. She peeped out to see Logan in the flickering firelight. Then she crawled under the warm woollen blankets. How strange! How marvellous to be there! She would not have exchanged that bed, and the canvas roof with its moving weird shadows, for the palace of a princess. But the wind moaned through the pines--moaned of the terrible loneliness, the distance, the wildness of this West.

    Chapter THREE .
    Lucinda awakened some time in the night, coming out of a dream of a strange, pale place, where she wandered down empty, echoing streets, fearful lest she should be seen in her boy's garb. The night was pitch dark and silent as the grave. The crickets, the wind, the brook had all but ceased their sounds. She was cold despite the blankets. She lay there shivering while the black canopy of the canvas changed to grey. Soon she heard sharp, weird, piercing yelps, wild and haunting.
    Dawn came. The ring of an axe and splitting of wood told her that Logan had begun his work. Lucinda sat up with an impulse to go out and join him. But the keen air made her change her mind. When she heard a fire crackling, however, she threw back the blankets and hunted for her boots.
    By the time she had the second one laced her little fingers were numb.
    She donned her coat, took her little bag and crawled out.
    Logan was not in sight. Lucinda made for the fire. If it had felt good the night before, what did it feel now? She had not known the blessing of heat. While she warmed her hands she gazed about. The grass was grey-white with frost; tar across the open Logan appeared astride one of the horses, driving in the oxen. The sky in the east was ruddy, but the all-encompassing wall of pines appeared cold, forbidding. Logan had been thoughtful to put on a bucket of water to heat. Before he arrived at the camp Lucinda had washed her face and hands and combed her hair. This morning she braided it and let it hang.
    "Howdy, settler," she called to Logan.
    "Well! Hello, red-cheeks! Say, but you're good to see this morning... How'd you rest?"
    "Slept like a log. Awoke once, after a queer dream. I was in a deserted town wandering about in these pants. What made those barks I heard?"
    "Coyotes. I like to hear them. But wolves make me shiver. I saw the track of a big lofer out there."
    "Lofer?"
    "That's local for wolf. Perhaps that track was made by Killer Gray. He's got a black ruff, Lucinda. I'll shoot him and cure his hide for a rug. We must live off the land."
    Lucinda helped him prepare breakfast. Afterwards, while Logan hitched the oxen to the wagon, Lucinda went after the second horse. He was not easy to catch, and the best she could do, was to drive him into camp, where Logan secured him. The exercise made her blood tingle, but she was glad to warm hands and feet at the fire. The red in the east paled and sun arose steely. Logan, remarking that the day was not going to be so good, advised Lucinda to procure her gloves and put a blanket on the seat.
    Presently the oxen were swinging on, tirelessly, their great heads nodding in unison. Lucinda marvelled at them. How patient, how plodding were these gentle beasts of burden! She had her first inkling of the value of such animals to the settlers in the wilderness. Thick woods swallowed up the wagon and claimed it for hours. But Lucinda was more at ease because the cold wind was shut off and the sun shone now and then.
    "Move over here and take your lesson," said Logan, at length, and put the whip in Lucinda's hands.
    "What'll I do?" she asked,