Zebbie was beside himself with joy.  The hounds sprang upon him and expressed their joy unmistakably.  He went at once to the corrals to see the “critters,” and every one of them was safely penned for the night.  “Old Sime,” an old ram (goodness knows how old!), promptly butted him over, but he just beamed with pleasure.  “Sime knows me, dinged if he don’t!” was his happy exclamation.  We went into the cabin and left him fondling the “critters.”

Gavotte did himself proud getting supper.  We had trout and the most delicious biscuit.  Each of us had a crisp, tender head of lettuce with a spoonful of potato salad in the center.  We had preserves made from canned peaches, and the firmest yellow butter.  Soon it was quite dark and we had a tiny brass lamp which gave but a feeble light, but it was quite cool so we had a blazing fire which made it light enough.

When supper was over, Zebbie called us out and asked us if we could hear anything.  We could hear the most peculiar, long-drawn, sighing wail that steadily grew louder and nearer.  I was really frightened, but he said it was the forerunner of the windstorm that would soon strike us.  He said it was wind coming down Crag Canon, and in just a few minutes it struck us like a cold wave and rushed, sighing, on down the canon.  We could hear it after it had passed us, and it was perfectly still around the cabin.  Soon we heard the deep roaring of the coming storm, and Zebbie called the hounds in and secured the door.  The sparks began to fly up the chimney.  Jerrine lay on a bearskin before the fire, and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I sat on the old blue “settle” at one side.  Gavotte lay on the other side of the fire on the floor, his hands under his head.  Zebbie got out his beloved old fiddle, tuned up, and began playing.  Outside the storm was raging, growing worse all the time.  Zebbie played and played.  The worse the tumult, the harder the storm, the harder he played.  I remember I was holding my breath, expecting the house to be blown away every moment, and Zebbie was playing what he called “Bonaparte’s Retreat.”  It all seemed to flash before me—­I could see those poor, suffering soldiers staggering along in the snow, sacrifices to one man’s unholy ambition.  I verily believe we were all bewitched.  I shouldn’t have been surprised to have seen witches and gnomes come tumbling down the chimney or flying in at the door, riding on the crest of the storm.  I glanced at Mrs. O’Shaughnessy.  She sat with her chin in her hand, gazing with unseeing eyes into the fire.  Zebbie seemed possessed; he couldn’t tire.

It seemed like hours had passed and the tumult had not diminished.  I felt like shrieking, but I gathered Jerrine up into my arms and carried her in to bed.  Mrs. O’Shaughnessy came with us.  She touched my elbow and said, “Child, don’t look toward the window, the banshees are out to-night.”  We knelt together beside the bed and said our beads; then, without undressing save pulling off our shoes,