The object of all this thought went about blissfully unconscious of the heart stirrings he was causing. Every moment of his life was full--full to the brim and even overflowing. There was not a settler in the district whom he had not visited during the fortnight. And his business was with the men alone. The result of his visits would have been visible to the eye of only the most experienced. Work went on the same as before, but there were many half hours which might have been spent in well-earned idleness now devoted by the men to a quiet, undemonstrative overhauling of their armory. As it was at these outlying farms so it was at White River. In the short twilight of evening Rube and Seth would wander round their buildings and the stockade, noting this defect, suggesting this alteration, or that repair. All their ideas were based on the single thought of emergency. Large supplies of cord-wood were brought in and stacked on the inner side of the stockade, thus adding to its powers of resistance. Every now and then Ma would receive casually dropped hints on the subject of her storeroom. A large supply of ammunition arrived from Beacon Crossing. Many cases of tinned provisions came along, and Ma, wondering, took them in without question or comment at the time. Later in the day when she happened to find Seth alone she told him of them, adopting a casual tone, the tone which these people invariably assumed when the signs of the times wore their most significant aspect. "There was a heap of canned truck come from the Crossing, Seth," she said. "I laid it down in the cellars. Maybe you sent it along?" And Seth replied-- "Why, yes, Ma. I figgered we'd like a change from fresh meat. You see I happened along to Beacon Crossing, an' I guessed I'd save a journey later." "I see." Ma's bright old eyes read all there was underlying her boy's words, and she, like the rest, continued steadily on with her work. So the days crept slowly by. Now the snow and ice were gone, and the tawny hue of the prairie was tinged with that perfect emerald of budding spring. The woodlands of the river and the Reservation had lost their barren blackness. The earth was opening its eyes and stretching itself after its months of heavy slumber. Life was in the very air of the plains. The whole world seemed to be bursting with renewed life.