unknown to him. So it ended in a sort of
compact that they were to help each other
in such ways as they could. Meanwhile the
fire got genial, and the coffee filled the cabin
with its comfortable scent, and all of them
ate together quite merrily, Henderson cut-
ting up the ham for the youngsters; and he
told how he chanced to come out; and she
entertained him with stories of what she
thought at first when she was brought a
bride to Hamilton, the adjacent village, and
convulsed him with stories of the people,
whom she saw with humorous eyes.

Henderson marvelled how she could in
those few minutes have rescued the cabin
from the desolation in which the storm had
plunged it. Out of the window he could
see the stricken grasses dripping cold moist-
ure, and the sky still angrily plunging for-
ward like a disturbed sea. Not a tree or a
house broke the view. The desolation of it
swept over him as it never had before. But
within the little ones were chattering to
themselves in odd baby dialect, and the
mother was laughing with them.

"Women aren't always useless," she said,
at parting; "and you tell your chums that
when they get hungry for a slice of home-