When Marie and Mrs. Whitney came up, Gertrude sat calmly before the

grate fire, but the note lay hidden over her heart, for in it he had

whispered that while he was away every night at eight o'clock and every

morning, no matter where she should be, or what doing, he should kiss

her lips and her eyes as he had kissed them that first morning in the

dark, warm office. When eight o'clock came her aunt and her sister sat

with her; but Gertrude at eight o'clock, musing, was with her lover and

her lips and eyes again were his to do with what he would. Later

Doctor Lanning came in and she roused to hear the news about the snow.

Between Sleepy Cat and Bear Dance two passenger trains were stalled,

and on Blackbird hill the snow was reported four feet deep on the level.

When the doctor had gone and Marie had retired, Gertrude's aunt talked

to her seriously about her father, whose almost frantic condition over

what he called Gertrude's infatuation was alarming.

Her aunt explained how her final refusal of Allen Harrison, a

connection on which her father had set his heart, might result in the

total disruption of the plans which held so mighty interests together;

and how impossible it was that he should ever consent to her throwing

herself away on an obscure Western man.

Only occasionally would Gertrude interrupt. "Don't strip the poor man

of everything, auntie. If it must come to family--the De Gallons and

Cirodes and Glovers were lords of the Mississippi when our Hessian

forefathers were hiding from Washington in the Trenton hazelbushes."

She could meet her aunt's fears with jests and her tears with smiles

until the worried lady chancing on a deeper chord disarmed her. "You

know you are my pet, Gertrude. I am your foster-mother, dear, and I

have tried to be mother to you and Marie, and sister to my brother

every day of my life since your mother died. And if you----"

Then Gertrude's arms would enfold her and her head hide on her aunt's

shoulder, and they would part utterly miserable.

One morning when Gertrude woke it was snowing and Medicine Bend was cut

completely off from the western end of the division. The cold in the

desert districts had made it impossible to move freights. During the

night they had been snowed in on sidings all the way from Sleepy Cat

east. By night every wire was down; the last message in was a private

one from Glover, with the ploughs, dated at Nine Mile.

Solomon brought the telegram up to Gertrude with the intimation that,

confidentially, Mr. Blood's assistant, in charge of the Wickiup, would

be glad to hear any news it might contain about the blockade, as

communication was now cut entirely off.




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