The work went on steadily from day to day, and Mrs. Macrae viewed with the approval and satisfaction of a good housewife the growing pile of fuel that would be right at hand through the long winter.
'Ye always were a good provider, Andrew,' she said, giving her stalwart husband a look of ineffable love and pride. 'Nane o' yer charge will ever want while ye're aboot.'
From under his shaggy brows, Andrew Macrae returned the look of love and pride; for to him there was no woman so bonnie or so wise as his gude wife, but he pretended to make light of the compliment, saying he was but doing his duty.
The wood-pile at the hut had grown big enough, and they were making their last trip to the timber. Mrs. Macrae had not accompanied them, but little Ailie would not be left at home. She enjoyed too much the ride out on the empty cart, and then back again, perched triumphantly on top of the load, to lose the last chance for it. So father had to yield to her pretty pleadings, although he would have preferred her remaining with her mother.
The father and son worked very hard that day, and during the afternoon got so engrossed in the completion of their task, that they quite forgot the little girl.
Then, left to her own resources, Ailie, as sturdy a child for her years as ever stepped, wandered off over the prairie in the opposite direction to home, her little head filled with some foolish notion of getting nearer to the sunset.
On and on she went, forgetful of everything but the beauty of the western sky, which had so fascinated her, and it was because her blue eyes were intent upon this, and not upon what was under her feet, that she did not notice the coulee, or break in the prairie, into which she fell with a sharp cry of fright.
Happily it was soft earth at the bottom of the coulee, and Ailie was not injured in the least by her fall. But she was terrified beyond measure at her situation, and screamed for her father and brother with the full strength of her lungs.
But, lying as she was at the bottom of the coulee, a dozen feet or more below the surface of the prairie, her most vigorous efforts could not have been heard many yards away.
There the poor little lonely frightened girl wept and wailed and cried out for her father and Hector, until at last, in sheer exhaustion, she lapsed into a sort of stupor and knew no more.