A Little Norsk | Page 3

on! If I ever git out o' this country alive, I'll bet I'll know enough not to come back," he broke out, stamping his foot in a rage. "I don't see what he means by it. If he's caught in that blow, his life ain't worth a cent."
CHAPTER II.
HER FIRST TRIP IN A BLIZZARD.
At half-past two the feelings of the silent watcher began to change. He thought more about his partner out there in the rising wind and thickening snow. The blast roared round the little cabin with a deep, menacing, rising moan, and laid to the stove-pipe a resounding lip, wailing and shouting weirdly. Bert's nervous walk quickened, and he looked so often through the pane that the frost had not time to close up.
Suddenly, out of the blinding, sweeping snow, not ten rods distant, the burly form of Anson burst, head down, blindly staggering forward into the teeth of the tempest. He walked like a man whose strength was almost gone, and he carried a large bundle in his arms.
Gearhart flung the door open, and called in a cheery voice to guide the struggling man to the house. He knew what it was to face such a wind.
"Here ye are, ol' man! Right this way! Keep y'r head down!"
Then, seeing that Anson hardly made headway against the terrible blast, he rushed out, bare-headed as he was, and caught and hurried him in and shut the door.
Reeling blindly, his breath roaring like a furnace, his eyebrows hung with icicles, his face masked with crusted snow, Anson staggered in, crying hoarsely, "Take her!" then slid to the floor, where he lay panting for breath.
Bert caught the bundle from his arms. A wailing, half-smothered cry came from it.
"What is it, Ans?" he asked.
"A kid; warm it," said the giant, trying with his numbed fingers to undo the shawl which wrapped the bundle. Bert hurriedly unwound the shawl, and a frightened child, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired--flossy as unfrosted corn-silk--was disclosed like a nubbin of corn after the husks are stripped off.
"Why, it's little Flaxen Hair! Wha' d'ye bring her over for?"
"'Sh!" said Anson hoarsely. "Mind how y' git her warm! Don't y' see she's froze?"
The little creature was about five, or possibly six years old, scantily clad, but neat and pretty. As her feet began to get warm before the fire, she wailed with pain, which Bert tried to stop by rubbing.
"Put her hands in y'r hair, hold her feet in y'r hands--don't rub 'em," commanded Ans, who was stripping the ice from his eyelashes and from his matted beard, which lay like a shield upon his breast. "Stir up the fire; give her some hot coffee an' some feed. She hain't had anything to eat."
Bert tried to do all these things at once, and could not, but managed finally to get the child a piece of bread and a cup of coffee, and to allay her fears. Ans began to recover from his horrible journey and was able to speak, though his lungs were still painful.
"Ol' man," he said solemnly and tenderly, "I came jest as near stayin' in that last gully down there as a man could an' not. The snow was up to my armpits, an' let me down wherever the weeds was. I had to waller; if it hadn't be'n for her, I guess I'd 'a' give up; but I jest grit m' teeth an' pulled through. There, guess y' hadn't better let her have any more. I guess she'll go to sleep now she's fed an' warmed. Jest le' me take her now, ol' man."
"No: you git rested up."
"See here, it'll rest me to hold that little chap. I'm all right. My hands is frosted some, an' my ears, that's all, but my breath is gittin' back. Come on, now," he pleaded.
Bert surrendered the child, who looked up into the bearded face of the rough fellow, then rested her head on his breast, and went to sleep at last. It made his heart thrill as he felt her little head against his breast. He never had held a child in his arms before.
"Say, Bert, reckon I'm a purty fair picture of a fam'ly man, now, eh? Throw in a couple o' twists more o' hay----"
Bert stirred up the fire.
"Well, now the little one is off, what's up over to the Norsk's? Wha' d'ye bring the child for?" he asked at last.
"Because she was the only livin' soul in the shanty."
"What?" His face was set in horror.
"Fact."
"Where's the Norsk?"
"I don't know. On the prairie somewhere."
"An' the mother?"
"She's----" Here the little one stirred slightly as he leaned forward, and Ans said; with a wink, "She's asleep." He winked significantly, and Bert understood what the sleep was. "Be a little careful what y' say--jes' now; the little rat is listenin'. Jest