Miss Blake flung her book down with a gesture of impatience.  “Oh, quit your nonsense, Sheila!” she said.  “What’s a shaking!  You know you can’t get out of here.  It’d take you a week to get anywhere at all except into a frozen supper for the coyotes.  Your beau’s left the country—­Madder told me at the post-office.  Make the best of it, Sheila.  Lucky if you don’t get worse than that before spring.  You’ll get used to me in time, get broken in and learn my ways.  I’m not half bad, but I’ve got to be obeyed.  I’ve got to be master.  That’s me.  What do you think I’ve come ’way out here to the wilderness for, if not because I can’t stand anything less than being master?  Here I’ve got my place and my dogs and a world that don’t talk back.  And now I’ve got you for company and to do my work.  You’ve got to fall into line, Sheila, right in the ranks.  Once, some one out there in the world”—­she made a gesture, dropped her chin on her big chest, and looked out under her short, dense, rust-colored eyelashes—­“tried to break me.  I won’t tell you what he got.  That’s where I quit the ways of women—­yes, ma’am, and the ways of men.”  She stood up and walked over to the window and looked out.  The dogs were sleeping in their kennels, but a chain rattled.  “I’ve broke the wolf-pack.  You’ve seen them wriggle on their bellies for me, haven’t you?  Well, my girl, do you think I can’t break you?” She wheeled back and stood with her hands on her hips.  It was at that moment that she seemed to fill the world.  Her ruddy eyes glowed like blood.  They were not quite sane.  That was it.  Sheila went suddenly weak.  They were not quite sane—­those red eyes filled with sparks.

The girl stepped back and sat down in her chair.  She bent forward, pressed her hands flat together, palm to palm between her knees, and stared fixedly down at them.  She made no secret of her desperate preoccupation.

Miss Blake’s face softened a little at this withdrawal.  She came back to her place and resumed her spectacles.

“I’ll tell you why I’m snappy,” she said presently.  “I’m scared.”

This startled Sheila into a look.  Miss Blake was moistening her lips.  “That horse—­you know—­the coyotes got him.  I guess he went down and they fell upon him.  Well, he was to feed the dogs with until I could get my winter meat.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I buy ’em for.  Little old horses, for a couple of bits, and work ’em out and shoot ’em for dog-feed.  Well, Sheila, when they’re fed, they’re dogs.  But when they’re starved—­they’re wolves ...  And I can’t think what’s come to the elk this year.  To-morrow I’ll take out my little old gun.”

To-morrow and the next day and the next she took her gun and strapped on her shoes and went out for all day long into the cold.  Each time she came back more exhausted and more fierce.  Sheila would have her supper ready and waiting sometimes for hours.