Sadie knitted her dark brows as she nerved herself to make a momentous choice.
On the one hand there was everything she longed for; on the other much that she disliked--monotonous work, the loneliness of the frozen prairie in the bitter winter, the society, at very long intervals, of farmers who talked about nothing but their crops, and the unslackening strain of activity in the hot summer.

Sadie thought of it with shrinking; she would soon get old and faded, and Bob, for whose sake she had done so, might turn from her.

Yet there was danger for him if they stayed at the settlement.

He had too many friends and whisky was always about.

She must save him from the constant temptation and must do so now.
For all that, she struggled.