“It is so dirty to look at!” she complained in confidence to Sophy, who had followed her out.
“It will be all right next time it snows,” Sophy answered. “It is the treading on it and the shovelling that make it look dirty. The frost will not get in so easily, and a banked-up house is so much warmer than one that is not banked. I think we ought to sleep downstairs at night now, because of the stove. If you do not like to use your grandfather’s room, we might put a bed in the best sitting-room.”
“We might use his room, then it would be aired if he should come back suddenly,” Pam replied, then immediately thought how disastrous it would be for him to come back with the responsibility of Sam Buckle’s death hanging over him.
Sophy made no answer. She had tact and sympathy, and was too fond of Pam to say or do anything which might add to the burden of her endurance.
There was a slow monotony about the days now, and the nights were so long that some mornings it seemed as if the day would never dawn. The outside work was very little now, for, acting on the advice of Nathan Gittins, Pam had sold the sheep when the first snow came. It was not wise to keep sheep through the winter in this forest district. If the weather was very severe the wolves always gathered in bands, and a sheepfold, however well protected, would offer no serious obstacles to them. The pigs were also reduced in number, those that were left having comfortable quarters at the end of the barn. The cow was in the barn for a permanency during this bad weather, and the rooster with half a dozen hens spent languid days in picking up crumbs at the door of the house, or standing idly on one leg in the sunshine when there was any.
The money from the sale of the pigs had been lodged with the storekeeper at The Corner. That was Sophy’s wisdom. The storekeeper had two prices for everything, one rather high for the people who wanted credit, the other very reasonable indeed for the people who were able to lodge money with him at the beginning of the winter. The difference would mean the saving of many dollars at the end of the winter. As she was there to guard the interests of her grandfather, Pam felt justified in spending so much of his money on necessaries. The money she was to receive for the twenty acres of lumber would be banked for her grandfather’s use should he come back to need it. Mrs. Buckle would not take back the twenty dollars she had lent to Pam to meet the needs of the old man if he should return, and that money was kept in the house to be handy if required.
Pam spent laborious hours in the barn, sawing wood to keep the stoves going. Never had she realized what a lot of wood one stove could consume in twelve or fifteen hours, and when it became necessary to have a fire at night also, wood-cutting bade fair to become her sole occupation. But it was fine, healthy work, and it sent her to bed so tired that she slept without dreams until morning, and that was surely worth while, considering the unprotected condition of herself and Sophy.
It had been snowing for two days without stopping—not a raging blizzard, but a steady downfall, which had piled a thick layer of the most dazzling white all over the banked-up house, and had weighed down the forest trees until the air was filled with the creaking, groaning, and snapping of straining branches.
“Will anyone ever come near us again, do you expect? And were you ever shut up in such a fashion before?” demanded Pam, as they sat down to breakfast on the third morning of their isolation.
“I have had it worse that this,” Sophy answered. She was looking radiantly content this morning. It was mail-day, and there would probably be a letter for her from George Lester, who was serving in the Mounted Police out in the wild Skeena country.