G. B. Lancaster

“ She was exhausted beyond thought when she crept into the house and up the stair, unseen by Sallie, and it was out of a half sleep that the sleigh bells brought her later. She sat up with hands over her eyes. Then, unable to resist the impulse, she went to the window.
Sallie, dozing with the fretful child in her arms and the westing sun low through the window on her tired face, woke startled at the figure, terror incarnate, in the doorway. To the stammering words and gestures, she gave little heed. She laid the baby down and ran out. ”

“ The Cave Man's instinct had not faltered when he had gone East on his search. Though glamour had deflected it for a space, that instinct had swung back, sure as the compass needle to the pole, under the eyes of his chosen mate. As the animal knows, as the more effete male of civilization does not know, the Cave Man had known the woman to whom he could trust his offspring. Janice's little day was past, as those of earth's butterflies do pass. Where deep called to deep between Sallie and her Cave Man, there was no more heed of lesser things. Janice saw it, felt it. ”

“ What do you know about men and forces? You're a little girl, Janice. Oh, you're clever. Most women are clever. But what do they know? My sakes, what do they think they know about men—and forces!”
“Really—but really, my good Dick,” she had said, standing before him with long-lashed eyes down and every slim, graceful line of her calculatingly demure, “when a girl has refused to marry thirty-odd men and unhappily foresees the certainty of having to refuse more, she may lay claim to knowing just a little about them, mayn't she?” ”

“ The roof is the weak place. They can tear up slates easy enough once they burrow under the snow. Otherwise, I guess—— Ah-h-h!”
It came like a curse as he heard the squeal of the first pig and the terrified whinny of the mare. Then the medley of devilish sounds—the yelping, snarling, fighting, screaming—turned Janice sick and faint. Sallie brought a steaming plate and a cup of tea, and the Cave Man ate ravenously, speaking not at all, but with glancing eyes that showed the rush of his thought. Smell of the food drove from Janice all sensations but hunger. ”

“ The keen air caught her face with a stinging caress, and, as always, the great sweep of snowy earth and vivid sky and sunshine, dazzling among white, slim cottonwood boles, snatched her soul up a fiercely physical intensity of living such as seemed the natural environment of the Cave Man. He had rushed her up to this plane more than once of late, with that tremendous vitality of his which acted like a Valkyrie gallop on the senses. And all the while Sallie wore a checked apron and ignored the writer's necessity for studying type. ”

“ She wanted to say:
“It is not you who have lost him. It is I. He is mine.”
Sallie walked over to the mare, called her by name, and led her into the barn. And Janice,unheeding the crying of the children, fled up the stair again and fell on her bed, face down. What Sallie would do she could not guess, any more than she could ask. What had happened she dared not think. He stood in her heart, the most potent, virile presence that had ever crossed her life. ”

“ Like some formless creeping animal, the three black figures went forward, with the hand sled waggling behind, while across the whole sky, in a devilish, mocking dance, the lights ran up and retreated and coquetted and came again, like a woman who plays with a man. ”

“ He had been filling the stove with wood, and he stood now, a billet yet in his hand, stooping slightly and yet alert, as the primitive man might have stood when he threw to kill. Eyes and manner had been somewhat startling. They had said so much more than occasion warranted, and the barbaric skins and Indian beadwork on the wall seemed as much a part of him as Sallie's poor little rosebud chintzes and cushions seemed a part of the woman. ”

“ Through scullery, kitchen, living room, and passage, she and Sallie keep their beat until Janice sank down among the cushions, on the pretext of quieting the children. Each time the report of the gun rang out, or the heavy footsteps shook the floor above, it seemed that the man who had climbed the stair went farther from her into those abysses of primal reality where she could not follow. ”

“ She had won where every fiber of her told her that she should lawfully have lost, and because of this, there was nothing in her but vindictive triumph toward the other woman and a chaos of wild emotions which she chose to call love toward the man. Shaking his bandaged head as if to clear it, the Cave Man looked at the two. It was as if his instinct turned to the one while the other held him by the senses. Then he listened, speaking as his trained ear interpreted the nearing sweep of sound:
“It's a full pack. Timber wolves and hungry. They mean business, and we're in for it, all right. ”

“ But the babies are darlings, and dear old Sallie is none the less a tragedy because she doesn't know it. And to think that a woman—any woman—who scrapes her hair back till it raises her eyebrows and wears a checked apron to supper could hold the exclusive interest of even a cave man for seven years! ”

“ He'll come around when he's warmed. I'll bring the sled up.”
She brought it alongside the great, motionless body, and with straining muscles they rolled the Cave Man across it. Janice desisted more than once, sobbing and averring the impossibility of moving fifteen stone of inert flesh and bone. But Sallie pushed and clutched and wriggled like a wild cat, with her little thin face wet and scarlet, her eyes and ears fiercely alert against that nearing threat, her wits at high tension to keep the nervous mare still when she left its head. ”

“ To Janice, fresh from that intoxicating vision in the glass, came a flood of puzzled contempt and impatience. Sallie deserved what might befall her. Any woman deserved anything if she so wantonly and recklessly threw away all her sex's weapons. And if it were proved again that men were of one type only——
“I hear baby crying,” she said. “Shall I ask Dick to get some soothing syrup or something?”
“No. It's just his teeth. Only time can cure his troubles, poor little man. Run along, dear. You've got your snow boots? Dick said you meant to walk home across lots from the woods. ”

“ There had been a lithe, warm youth about her every movement and a skill in every inflection of her voice.
“Dick—my dear Dick, don't you know that I admire you and dear old Sallie to the point of idiocy? I'm speaking the absolute truth. Little plots will do for the little people of the world. There's nothing little out here—not even the daily chores. Men—forces—beliefs—they're all bigger and more terrible—and more natural. ”

“ Or does the West still hold relics of the original cave men, who were not particular as to the number of teeth or eyes their mates might have so long as there. was some one to cook for them and rear their brood? I believed I'd proved to the edge of exhaustion that there is only one type of man when he's looking for some one to love. ”

“ A Ian tern swung in her gloved hand, and beneath the furred hood her pale eyes gleamed out with a frosty light.
“Get on your thickest things and come along, Janice,” she said. “We're going to look for him.”
“Sallie! We can't! How can we? We don't know where he is! Hadn't we best get the Indians from the crossing?”
“The crossing is eight miles off across the muskeg, as you know. We're going to find him. Be quick. Take off that skirt. It's too long. We can't afford to hamper ourselves. Put on this.”
Dazedly the girl obeyed. There was electric force in the very quiet of that voice. ”

“ Used as she was to the prayers and the despairs of men, blunted through many triumphs to the delicate reserves that had once been hers, the quick, purposeful savagery of this frightened her more than she guessed. ”

“ Be quick, dear! Dick's waiting.”
“Coming,” she called, and her voice had something of the metallic, fluty sweetness of the veery; an exquisite voice, never slurred by the throb of the heart behind.
In the narrow passage, Sallie stood wiping her reddened arms in her apron, and through the door behind, the fretful wail of the baby and the smell of suds came out with a cloud of steam. Outside, where all the world sparkled like cut glass, the Cave Man was talking horse language to the impatient mare, and the grate of sleigh runners sounded on the frozen snow.
“Are you warm enough, Janice? ”

“ Sallie had written back. “Dick and I and the Indians fill the bill. We can give you enough food and fresh air, and hardly any of anything else, and our charge is seven dollars, You can have all the attic beyond the rubberoid partition—Dick and I and the babies have the other side—and all the Rockies and the prairies and the woods beyond your window—no extra charge for regular sunsets and northern lights. But don't bring any of those arks you always had to have for your clothes. There is only one barn, and the mare and the cow need most of that—with the chickens.” ”

“ Sallie was as vital as a stinging wind off the sea. Janice's own half-deadened senses told her that. But the Cave Man had said—had looked——
Sallie ceased rubbing and sat back on her heels.
“He'll do now. See the blood coming up under the skin? I'll bind his arm, and then I must feed those babies. It breaks my heart to hear them crying. See, Janice, sit here where Dick can see you when he rouses, and be sure you don't startle him. He'll be all right if that blow hasn't affected his head.”
“Might it? Oh, Sallie!”
“Of course it might. Don't look like that. Being scared won't help. ”

“ Oh, sure. How big a plot does it take to carry the fact that I begged old newspaper down at Job's to paper the scullery? Or that Sallie has been using wood lye for soap this year past? Or that I never got my new fence staked before fall because I hired myself out to chop wood down at the crossing for the steamers? How big a plot is it going to take to carry all that?”
“They are the real things, anyway. ”

“ Janice's cry mounted into hysterical laughter as the man drank and flung the mug aside, and Sallie wiped the blood off the hatchet handles with her apron and held them ready for his word.
Suddenly he lifted on his toes and fired to right and left swiftly. Then, as the brutes fell yelling on their horrid meal, he reloaded and fired again.
The end came sooner than Janice had expected. Again the Cave Man fired, and then he stepped down.
“I guess that's the lot. Those we haven't bagged have vamoosed,” he said ”