I never see anybody harder hit than her. I love a scrap, but I thinks "Billy, she's having a stiffer fight than you ever associated with."
Finally she says, kind of slow and quiet: "Who knows where the
'Cut-off' starts?"
Nobody answers, and up speaks the U. S. man again.
"You've got your nerve, to ask a man out on such a night."
"If there was one here, I wouldn't have to ask him. There's people freezing within five miles of here, and you hug the stove, saying: 'It's stormy, and we'll get cold.' Of course it is. If it wasn't stormy they'd be here too, and it's so cold, you'll probably freeze. What's that got to do with it? Ever have your mother talk to you about duty? Thank Heaven I travelled that portage once, and I can find it again if somebody will go with me."
'Twas a blush raising talk, but nobody upset any furniture getting dressed.
She continues:
"So I'm the woman of this crowd and I hide behind my skirts. Mr. Mail Man, show what a glorious creature you are. Throw yourself—get up and stretch and roar. Oh, you barn-yard bantam! Has it had its pap to-night? I've a grand commercial enterprise; I'll take all of your bust measurements and send out to the States for a line of corsets. Ain't there half a man among you?"
She continued in this vein, pollutin' the air, and, having no means of defence, we found ourselves follerin' her out into a yelling storm that beat and roared over us like waves of flame.
Swede luck had guided their shaft onto the richest pay-streak in seven districts, and Swede luck now led us to the Lund boys, curled up in the drifted snow beside their dogs; but it was the level head and cool judgment of a woman that steered us home in the grey whirl of the dawn.