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Updated: May 24, 2025
"You need not fear any trouble with my horse," the evangelist said, as Dallas was heard bidding Simon keep to his side of the stall. "Shadrach is a gentle beast." At the name, the section-boss cocked his head like an inquiring bird. "M-m, Shadrach," he began in important reflection; "y' call y' hoss Shadrach. Ah seem t' hev heerd thet name before."
A few moments afterward, there came a mule's long bray from below the shack, followed by the voice of the section-boss, urging on the team. She found her long cloak and hastened out. She could not wait for the wagon to stop before calling anxiously to her father. "Did you file?" she asked, walking beside Betty. Lancaster did not answer, but scolded feebly, as if worn with his long trip.
He crossed the room and picked up coat and cap. "Of course," added David Bond, "following the law would strengthen the case." "Of course." The section-boss adjusted his crutches and stood up. "You-all seem t' be settlin' it 'thout any o' my lip," he said, and laughed mockingly. "We have your interests at heart," replied the storekeeper. Lancaster ground his teeth.
So I've stayed, and I guess I'll keep a-staying. But sometimes I get a notion to throw my stores up and go into the cow business or farming." Dallas sank back, checked, not by Lounsbury's words, but by her father. The section-boss, one hand behind a hairy ear, was glowering at the storekeeper. "Eh, what?" he asked suspiciously. "I say I've a notion to take up some land," repeated Lounsbury.
The green pung was ten miles or more beyond Clark's before the section-boss recovered appreciably from his long sulk. "What d' y' s'pose Lounsbury reckoned could happen t' my gals?" he demanded of David Bond. The evangelist shook the reins at Shadrach. "A storm, cold, want," he replied. "There are many evils that might befall two young women alone in a shanty on the prairie."
Lancaster thrust his head through the hole. Between the scantlings that penned Simon into his part of the lean-to, the section-boss spied two glowing eyes. They watched him, then the door, then him again. "M-m-m-m!" came a deep protest, as the bull blew and pawed at the dirt floor. The section-boss drew back nervously. "Simon's actin' funny," he said. "He's locoed, or he's smelt a mice."
Then the old section-boss, with his crutches beside him and his daughters seated in the all but empty box behind, said a husky farewell to the men crowding around the wagon, and started the mules along the road that led northward beside the rails.
Next, the well was dug; and the barn built as a lean-to, for the Lancasters knew little, but had heard much, about the blizzards of the territory. Then, while the elder girl covered the slanting rafters over Ben and Betty's stall, the section-boss hauled a scanty stock of hay and provisions from Clark's, a cattle-camp and settlement to the northeast.
"You got some?" queried Marylyn, sitting up. Dallas went back to the other cup. "Well, what do you think I'm doing?" she asked, and lifted it to her lips. Soon, the three were lying shoulder to shoulder again, the section-boss drawing a little added comfort from his pipe. Before long, he was asleep; Marylyn, too. When Dallas got up cautiously and brewed a cup of peppered water for herself.
He was alternately mooing and blowing, and his angry eyes were fixed, not on the section-boss, but on the bottom of the door. "Simon, Simon," said Lancaster, in a wheedling tone. He could scarcely see the animal, for the eastern window was snowed shut. The bull made no move.
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