Soon afterward a second worry presented itself, one fully as serious. The provisions were dwindling, the seed-sacks shrinking fast, and, estranged from Lounsbury, they had nowhere to ask credit but at the Fort.
When Dallas spoke of it to her father, he chuckled. "Wal, we got Simon, ain't we?" he said.
That same night, Marylyn put down her fork and stared across the table at her sister. "Why, Dallas, you don't eat!" she complained.
Dallas laughed. "I don't work, honey," she answered.
The question of fuel entered next, and became a grave one. So far, the weather had been fairly mild for the place and the season. Now, it took a more rigorous turn. The bitter cold was intensified by a stiff wind. Snow began to fall, and the wind, growing, drove the flakes level, so that they cut the face like filings of steel. Charley's trips became uncertain, then impossible. The work of getting out hay for the stock was a desperate tax. It was so difficult that Dallas dared not spare a straw for the fireplace, and Ben and Betty's manger had to be drawn upon for wood. When this source of supply failed, the benches were sacrificed one by one, the cupboard was torn down, and the bunk and part of the table were split into kindling.
The family slept shoulder to shoulder before the hearth, with the brave-coloured blankets of the partition for extra covering. Lancaster and the younger girl stayed in bed all of the twenty-four hours. Dallas got up only long enough to tend the animals and prepare food. But a day came when she could not make her way to the lean-to, and when the warped door could not be opened in the teeth of the raging storm. Toward noon, she cooked some food, however. The seed sacks were empty; there was no rice and no flour. While the blizzard howled without, and Simon and the mules called pitifully for their fodder and drink, she broke up what was left of the table. Over its blaze the last smitch of bacon went to savour the last pint of beans.
After the meal Dallas read aloud. Lying down, she held her book in one hand until her fingers were blue with cold, then changed to the other. Father and sister drowsed, and she put the story aside to study over the predicament in which she felt herself at fault. Counting on blizzards, but knowing nothing of their duration, she had determined to say little about their needs until those needs pressed. When, she knew, her father would see their extremity. The extremity had come. Yet, willing or unwilling, Lancaster was cut off from seeking help.
That day closed in fearful cold. The wind was become a furious gale. Sturdily, the log house withstood it. Only the roof seemed threatened. With each great blast, it lifted a little, as if on the point of whirling away. But when darkness came, even the roof settled into quiet. For the drifts that had been piling up gradually to the north and west of the shack, sealing the windows and the door, had risen to the grassy eaves and overflowed them, and so weighted the thatch.
Next morning, long before Marylyn and her father wakened, Dallas roused. The room was in dusk, and its air was so cold that it seemed fairly to singe the skin. She could not read. Presently, Marylyn turned. The elder girl hastened to soothe her. Then, their father yawned. Dallas feigned sleep.
But the evil moment could not be put off. Lancaster propped himself on an elbow and called to her. He was hungry.