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Show I7V Bill drove the horse back to the Dream Mine cabin and tried to figure out which of the boxes he'd thrown out the night before had baby clothes in them. One looked like a grub box, and he started to unload that-about twenty pounds of flour, lard, a little honey, cooking pans, cans of milk and, sure enough, diapers, shirts and knitted things. He could smell bread, and found a loaf, wrapped carefully in a cloth. For a minute he stopped and thought of the pretty, tall young xroman, he'd seen maybe a dozen times this summer, who had packed the box. Quickly he threw everything back; in the dim early morning light, he felt cold again, and also the need to get back to the baby. He got a log from the woodpile and put it against the back of the wagon; pulled the deer carcass up the log and into the wagon. Then he pulled up the three boxes and climbed in and took the reins. The sky was starting to show more light as he drove back to the shack; looking ahead at the mountains, they began to color up, but he didn't feel the joy he usually felt with the autumn-all the garden work done, his soap made, and jerky dried. Instead, he x-rished for spring in an unnatural m y for him. He usually liked the change of seasons. The horse slowed as it started the pull up the hill to his shack,and the sun was up xmen he got to the cabin. He could see Olaf at the spring cupping his hands in the cold water and sloshing it over his face, head and neck. Olaf had lived as a mountain man last winter-not holing up in Blue Burg. J3e |