While she is adjusting the remnant of a shawl so as to cover as much of her shoulders as possible, the children are giving her numerous messages to be given their father when she finds him. At last she is ready. After hesitating a moment she kisses them all and with a shudder steps out into the howling, swirling blast.
She walked briskly, halting a second every time she met a man to see if he were the object of her search and passing each time with a growing fear, as each time she was disappointed.
At last she came to the door of the saloon where her father had so often worse than wasted the money his family were perishing for at home.
She stopped.
She knew it was warm and light inside. Perhaps her father had just stepped inside to get warm. Should she look?
While she stood shivering in the wind, getting her courage up to the point of entering, a man passed her and went in. As he went through the door a familiar voice greeted her ear, a voice she well knew and had learned to fear.
She did not hesitate longer. Opening the door she walked swiftly and noiselessly in. For a moment the air seemed to stagger her, so laden was it with the fumes of liquor and tobacco. There was a crowd around the bar and the bartender was busy mixing drinks and jingling glasses.
She saw her father. He was about two-thirds drunk and she knew, poor child, that she had found him at his worst. Her courage almost failed her, and she took an involuntary step toward the door. Her father's voice arrested her.
"Here it goes, and it's my last. Now, who can say Dam Crow has not done the square thing?" And with the words he flung a silver dollar on the bar. His last had joined his first. All had gone into the same coffer while an innocent wife and helpless children were starving and freezing at home.