After the snow came we seemed to cling to each other's company even more than before. It's a solemn thing to lie alone in a world of snow. Perhaps its coldness, its stark whiteness, its vast silence suggest that which makes the heart reach out for some warm pulse of friendship. Perhaps its peace and beauty stir something in our nature that insists on being shared. CHAPTER XIV. Days wore by; sometimes days of unbroken sunshine; sometimes days of gently sifted whiteness fluttering out of a grey sky. In a week all the prairie was blanketed deep with snow. Then came the great night. At this time of the year, in this latitude, it is dark by five in the afternoon, particularly if the sky happen to be overcast. On the day in question Jack and I had done up our few chores about the stable, carried in a supply of water and firewood, and returned to our shacks for supper. Marjorie, brisk, efficient housewife that she was, had the table set when I came in. Our meals were perforce simple, and when we had finished and the few dishes were cleared away I looked at my watch. It was barely six o'clock. "This is going to be another of our long, long evenings," Marjorie remarked, with what seemed like a suggestion of complaining. "Suppose you ask Jack and Jean to come over; I don't feel like going out in the snow." "Jean may not feel like going out either," I retorted. "I guess she's as much like sugar as you are," I added, having in my mind some reference to an adage about sugar melting. "I fancy you think she's a good deal more like sugar than I am, brother o' mine," Marjorie returned. "Well, run along and find out." Later, when I recalled that remark, I was struck with its significance, but at the moment I had no suspicion that Jack and Marjorie were working a scheme on me. I have always held that Jean was innocent of any part in it. So urged, I pulled on my pea-jacket and overshoes and fur cap and started out on the hundred-yard jaunt from our shack to the one across the gully. As I came out of the door the snow was falling thickly but in smaller flakes than usual; the air seemed filled with a mist of snow, and there was a rising wind, but the temperature was not uncomfortable. I could see the dull yellow glow of the light in Jean's window across the gully and a thing that struck me at the moment was that nothing about that glow offered any clue to the distance at which it was located. Had I not known I might have believed it a mile away, or within a dozen yards. I made the trip without difficulty and entered without knocking as was our custom in our numerous visits back and forth. Jean looked up from the table where she sat reading. "Alone, Frank?" she said, when I had closed the door behind me. "Yes; where's Jack? I came to see----" "Jack left for Fourteen some time ago. He was going to ask you and Marjorie to come over. You must have passed him."