It's Thursday.

Pa was putting on his boots. He put his foot in, and he put his fingers through the strapears at the top of the long boot leg. Then he gave a mighty pull and he stamped hard on the floor, and that boot was on. He said that maybe Scott was sick, pulling on the other boot. Ma asked low that if he supposed... Pa said no and that he kept telling her they wouldn’t make any trouble, and they were perfectly quiet and peaceable down in those camps among the bluffs. Laura began to climb out of bed, but Ma asked her to lie down and be still. So she lay down. Pa put on his warm, bright plaid coat, and his fur cap, and his muffler. He lighted the candle in the lantern, took his gun, and hurried outdoors. Before he shut the door behind him, Laura saw the night outside. It was black dark. Not one star was shining. Laura had never seen such solid darkness. Laura asked Ma what made it so dark. Ma answered that it was going to storm. She pulled the latch-string in and put a stick of wood on the fire. Then she went back to bed. She asked Mary and Laura to go to sleep. But Ma did not go to sleep, and neither did Mary and Laura. They lay wide awake and listened. They could not hear anything but the wind. Mary put her head under the quilt and whispered to Laura that she wished Pa’s come back. Laura nodded her head on the pillow, but she couldn’t say anything. She seemed to see Pa striding along the top of the bluff, on the path that went toward Mr. Scott’s house. Tiny bright spots of candlelight darted here and there from the holes cut in the tin lantern. The little flickering lights seemed to be lost in the black dark. After a long time Laura whispered that it must be most morning. And Mary nodded. All that time they had been lying and listening to the wind, and Pa had not come back. Then, high above the shrieking of the wind they heard again that terrible scream. It seemed quite close to the house.