Bert did not write, and there was hardly a night that Ans lay down on his bed that he did not wonder where his chum was, especially as the winter came on unusually severe, reminding him of that first winter in the Territory. Day after day he spent alone in his house, going out only to feed the cattle or to get the mail. The sad wind was always in his ears. But with the passage of time the pain in his heart lost its intensity. One day he got a letter from Flaxen that startled and puzzled him. It was like a cry for help, somehow. "Dear old pap, I wish you was here," and then in another place came the piteous cry, "Oh, I wish I had some folks!" All night long that cry rang in the man's head with a wailing, falling cadence like the note of a lost little prairie-chicken. "I wonder what that whelp has been doin' now. If he's begun to abuse her I'll wring his neck. She wants me an' da'sn't ask me to come. Poor chick, I'll be pap an' mam to ye, both," he said at last, with sudden resolution. The day after the receipt of this letter a telegram was handed to him at the post-office, which he opened with trembling hands: Anson Wood: Your daughter is ill. Wants you. Come at once. Dr. Dietrich. He got into his wagon mechanically and lashed his horses into a run. He must get home and arrange about his stock and catch the seven o'clock train. His mind ran the round of the possibilities in the case until it ached with the hopeless fatigue of it. When he got upon the train for an all-night ride, he looked like a man suffering some great physical pain. He sat there all night in a common seat--he could not afford to pay for a sleeper; sat and suffered the honest torture that can come to a man--to sit and think the same dread, apprehensive wondering thoughts; to strain at the seat as if to push the train faster, and to ache with the desire to fly like the eagle. He tried to be patient, but he could only grow numb with the effort. A glorious winter sun was beginning to light up the frost foliage of the maples lining St. Peter's streets when Anson, stiff with cold and haggard with a night of sleepless riding, sprang off the train and looked about him. The beauty of the morning made itself felt even through his care. These rows of resplendent maples, heavy with iridescent frost, were like fairy-land to him, fresh from the treeless prairie. As he walked on under them, showers of powdered rubies and diamonds fell down upon him; the colonnades seemed like those leading to some enchanted palace, such as he had read of in boyhood. Every shrub in the yards was similarly decked, and the snug cottages were like the little house which he had once seen at the foot of the Christmas-tree in a German church years before. Feet crunched along cheerily on the sidewalks, bells of dray-teams were beginning to sound, and workmen to whistle. Anson was met at the door by a hard-faced, middle-aged woman. "How's my girl?" he asked. "Oh, she's nicely. Walk in."