travelled than ever. "It would be nice to have a neighbour," she added,
as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. "I get so lonely--just
minutes I get lonely. But it's them minutes that seem to count more than
all the rest when they come. I expect that's it--we don't live in
months and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an
earthquake to do its work--it's seconds then. . . . P'r'aps dad won't
even come to-morrow," she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It
never seemed so long before, not even when he's been away a week." She
laughed bitterly. "Even bad company's better than no company at all.
Sure. And Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times.
Mickey was a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he'd have been better
company if he'd been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I
really think he would. Bad company doesn't put you off so."

There was a scratching at the inside of the door. "My, if I didn't
forget Shako," she said, "and he dying for a run!"

She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full
breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air
of the north in every motion--like his mistress also.

"Come, Shako, a run--a run!"

An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her
short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those of
any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for she
was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and fed on its
scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and forwards they
ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was twenty-three, her
eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands thrown up in sheer