they could go back to the line camps and be fed. When they needed oil-cake they could get it, even if grudgingly, from the owners. But Tom had no such resource. He was determined not to go to Tulloss for money, and not to touch what Kay had left in the bank. He would make good or starve.
There came times when Kay almost faded from his mind. She became an intolerable memory, associated with days of warmth and sunshine and hope. He did not know it was Christmas eve until he met a lonely line rider on the range. The day was dark, with a fine hard snow driving in his face. He was almost on the other man before he saw him.
"Hell of a Christmas eve, isn't it?"
"Didn't know it was Christmas eve."
They passed and were lost in the storm. Tom rode on, his head bent, letting the horse choose the way. So this was Christmas eve! A long time ago, years and eons ago, he and Kay had sat on a little porch in the sunshine and had planned for Christmas.
"I'm going to get some turkeys, so we can have one on Christmas. Isn't Christmas without turkey."
"I'll have to look it up in the cook book!"
"Shucks! I'll show you how to fix it. You've married a cook, Mrs. McNair, if I do say it."
He got home that night and took off his boots. He had made a bootjack now, so he could do it alone. Then, for some reason he could not explain, he hunted around and found a candle and put it in the window. He had seen a Mexican puncher do that once, a long time ago, on Christmas eve.
"What you doin' that for, Mex?"
"Maybe somebody outside and want to come in," said Mex, mysteriously.
So he lighted his candle and sat looking at it, and after a while he slept in his chair. . . .
So far there had been little snow. The temperature fell as low as twenty-six degrees below zero once or twice, and Tom carried an ice axe on his saddle to cut water holes in the frozen creeks; it required strength and skill, for to
