kitten only mewed and faintly waved its tail. Alexandra turned
away decidedly. "No, she won't come down. Somebody will have to
go up after her. I saw the Linstrums' wagon in town. I'll go and
see if I can find Carl. Maybe he can do something. Only you must
stop crying, or I won't go a step. Where's your comforter? Did
you leave it in the store? Never mind. Hold still, till I put
this on you."

She unwound the brown veil from her head and tied it about his
throat. A shabby little traveling man, who was just then coming out
of the store on his way to the saloon, stopped and gazed stupidly
at the shining mass of hair she bared when she took off her veil;
two thick braids, pinned about her head in the German way, with a
fringe of reddish-yellow curls blowing out from under her cap. He
took his cigar out of his mouth and held the wet end between the
fingers of his woolen glove. "My God, girl, what a head of hair!"
he exclaimed, quite innocently and foolishly. She stabbed him with
a glance of Amazonian fierceness and drew in her lower lip--most
unnecessary severity. It gave the little clothing drummer such a
start that he actually let his cigar fall to the sidewalk and went
off weakly in the teeth of the wind to the saloon. His hand was
still unsteady when he took his glass from the bartender. His
feeble flirtatious instincts had been crushed before, but never
so mercilessly. He felt cheap and ill-used, as if some one had
taken advantage of him. When a drummer had been knocking about in
little drab towns and crawling across the wintry country in dirty
smokingcars, was he to be blamed if, when he chanced upon a fine
human creature, he suddenly wished himself more of a man?

While the little drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, Alexandra