It was the breaking of the ice, and they laughed together. The girl had
been working with arms bare to the elbow, and as now of a sudden she
rolled the sleeves down Craig laughed again; and in unconscious echo a
second later she joined. Almost before they knew it, there alone in the
little whitewashed kitchen with the crackling cook-stove and the
sunshine streaming in through the tiny-paned windows, they were friends.
All the while the girl went about the task of preparing a belated
breakfast they laughed and chatted--and drew nearer and nearer. Again
while Craig ate and at his command the girl sat opposite to entertain
him, they laughed and chatted. Still later, the slowly eaten meal
finished, while Elizabeth Landor washed the dishes and put everything
tidy and Craig from his seat on the bottom of an inverted basket
reversed the position of entertainer, they laughed and chatted. And
through it all, openly when possible, surreptitiously when it were wise,
the man gave his companion inspection. And therein he at first but
followed an instinct. Very, very human was Clayton Craig of Boston,
Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and very, very good to look upon was
brown-eyed, brown-skinned, brown-haired Elizabeth Landor. Neither had
thought of evil, had other thought than the innocent pleasure of the
moment that first morning while the tiny clock on the wall measured off
the swift-moving minutes. Good it is to be alive in sun-blessed South
Dakota on a frosty warm October day, doubly good when one is young; and
these two, the man and the girl, were both young. Months it takes, years
sometimes, in civilisation, with barriers of out on the prairie, alone,
with the pulse of nature throbbing, throbbing, insistently all about,
the process is very swift, so swift that an hour can suffice. No, not
that first hour wherein unconsciously they became friends, did the angel
with the big book record evil opposite the name of Clayton Craig; not
until later, not until he had had time to think, not until--.