However, he quickly put his hand to his head.
“That’s where I hit when I landed, I guess,” he said, trying to speak lightly. He staggered as he walked, and was glad indeed when the cabin was reached and he found himself lying on Ken’s bed in the small room adjoining the kitchen.
Carol had put another stick on the fire and had filled the teakettle. Dixie praised her small sister for her thoughtfulness. How glad, glad, that little mother was when she realized that Carol was beginning to think of others.
As the older girl prepared a hot beverage for their unexpected guest, she was wondering where her brother would sleep. Surmising this, the lad told her he’d fold a quilt and sleep on the floor near the stove. “Ira and I slept on the hard ground for a week when we were off wood-cutting for his dad,” he concluded.
Dixie went to bed that night with a strange feeling—a premonition perhaps—that something unusual was about to happen. Nor was she wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A HAPPY FATHER
The next day dawned gloriously, but the snow was still too deep in the cañon for the children to attend the morning session of the log-cabin school.
“The snow-plow will be along soon, I suppose,” Carol said, as she peered up toward the highway.
Sylvia, who stood at Carol’s side exclaimed: “Look! Look! There’s a shining white cloud flying low. Did you suppose clouds ever came so far down the mountain?”
Carol gleefully clapped her hands. “It’s the plow going up the road this very minute,” she cried in joy. “It throws up the snow in clouds just like that.” Then she added: “I’ll tell my brother. He’ll want to finish shoveling our path now.”