“Yes, maw.”

“Did Judy or Jim say that they dreamed anything?”

“Jim said he dreamed he had a pup.”

“Was that all?  Think hard, Topeka!”

Topeka held the handle of the coffee-mill in her hand; her jaw continued to work with the labor of her mental process.  “I’ve thought hard, maw, and all he told was about the pup.”

Alida went back to her bedroom and again felt the brown bureau.  “What’s the matter with me, anyhow?  It’s the lonesomeness, and they bein’ agin Jim the way they are.  God, this country’s hard on women and horses!”

When breakfast was over, and young Jim had received the reward of his valor in presenting a brave face to his ablution, and Judith the reward of her skill, the evidence of which almost prevented the young martyr from smiling while he enjoyed his treat, their mother sent them all to play in the canon.  She told them not to come home till she should come for them, and if any one should ask about their father, to say that he was away from home.  And this, as well as the mystery of her father’s “getting his sleep out,” roused some slight apprehension in Topeka, who was old for her age.  They were seldom sent to the canon to play.  Topeka looked at her mother as she had when questioned about the dream, but there was no further confidence between them.

“You do as your sister Topeka tells you, and remember what I said about your papa,” Alida said to the younger children.  Jim and Judy clasped each other’s hands in mute compact at the edict.  Their sister Topeka had a real genius for authority; they were minded all too well when she swayed the maternal sceptre vicariously.

Alida made fresh coffee for Jim when the children had gone.  She made it carefully; there was this morning, unconsciously, about each little thing that she did for him, the solemnity of a funeral rite.  Struggle as she would, she could not divest her mind of the conviction that what she did this day she did for the dead.  She would go to the door and listen to his breathing, and tell herself that she was a fool, then wring her hands at the remembrance of the dream.

As he tossed, half waking, she heard him groan and curse the cattle-men with oaths that made her glad she had sent the children from home.  Then she bent over him and woke him from his uneasy slumber.

“Jim, don’t you want me to bathe your head?  And here’s some nice, hot coffee all ready for you.”

Jim woke slowly to a realization of his troubles and his blessings.  His wife was bathing his head with hands that trembled.  Not always had she greeted his indiscretions with such loving forbearance.  He noticed, though his waking faculties were not over-keen, that her face was pale and frightened, and that her eyes, meeting his, held a dumb, measureless affection.