Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer.  “I didn’t go right away but—­I did—­at last.  I propped her up in bed and ran.  If I hadn’t—­” Her eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, “if I hadn’t—­you’d have been lost in the blizzard and—­my baby would have died!”

She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked tears.  Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin.

“Did you get this then?”

She nodded.  “The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the lantern.  I thought I’d—­never—­get back!”

It was Smith who translated Dan’s look of appeal for the cup of warm milk and held it to the girl’s lips.

“Drink it, Mis’ Clark, you need it.”

She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup and fell against the driver’s rough sleeve.  “Poor kid, dead asleep!”

Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveller sprang to open.  She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her.  Dan slipped off the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over mother and child.

“Poor kid, but she’s grit, clear through!”

Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard.  “Be over pretty soon now!” He seated himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms and was asleep.

The traveller’s face had lost some of its shrewdness.  It was as if the white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life.  He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips twitched.

With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat to its accustomed appearance of luxury.  He looked about the room, picked up the grey kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort.

He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered on a corner shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at the ancient coat of arms on the book plate.  He tiptoed across to the bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate.  “Edward Winslow (7) to his dear daughter, Alice (8).”

He motioned toward the bed.  “Her name?”

Hillas nodded, Smith grinned.  “Dan’s right.  Blood will tell, even to damning the rest of us.”

He sat down on the bench.  “I understand more than I did Hillas, since—­you crawled back after me—­out there.  But how can you stand it here?  I know you and the Clarks are people of education and, oh, all the rest; you could make your way anywhere.”

Hillas spoke slowly.  “I think you have to live here to know.  It means something to be a pioneer.  You can’t be one if you’ve got it in you to be a quitter.  The country will be all right some day.”  He reached for his greatcoat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel.  He smiled at it oddly and went on as if talking to himself.