The Orphan Boy Walked Eleven Frozen Miles to Ask for Winter Work—Then He Pointed Back Toward His Little Sister Beside a Broken Handcart, and the Lonely Wyoming Rancher Answered Without a Promise by Pulling Two Dusty Plates From the Shelf

Silas had one trace unbuckled when he heard the kitchen door open behind him.

Eli stood on the porch holding the kindling box.

“You mean it?”

Silas pulled the leather free from Bishop’s harness.

“I generally do.”

“Till spring?”

“Through calving.”

“And Nora?”

Silas turned.

The boy still needed the answer spoken twice.

“Your sister stays.”

Eli lowered his eyes toward the box.

Then he crossed the yard and filled it.

The weeks that followed did not make the children easy.

They made their fear easier to see.

Eli learned Silas’s routine quickly. He carried kindling, tended chickens, and curried Bishop under supervision. Whenever Silas lifted a feed sack, Eli reached for the next one. Whenever a hinge sagged, the boy found tools before being asked.

Nora watched Eli before doing nearly everything.

One December morning she dropped an egg in the snow.

The shell split.

Yellow spread across the white crust.

She froze.

“I’m sorry.”

Silas looked at the basket in her hands.

Eight eggs remained.

“There are more.”

Her eyes stayed fixed on him.

“Then we lost one egg.”

Nothing else happened.

No shouting.

No punishment.

No meal taken away.

Silas carried the basket toward the house, then realized Nora had not followed.

“Nora.”

She looked up.

“Come inside before you freeze.”

That evening, for the first time, she asked for a second helping without looking at Eli first.

January brought harder cold.

At night the roof nails cracked as the timbers tightened. Silas moved both mattresses from the loft to the kitchen floor and woke every two hours to feed the stove.

One night Eli sat awake beside Nora.

“She’s coughing.”

Silas knelt.

No fever.

Dry air.

He warmed water with a little honey and held the cup while Nora drank.

After she slept, Eli remained sitting with his blanket around his shoulders.

“She used to get sick after Pa died.”

Silas stared into the stove.

“What took your mother?”

“Fever.”

“Doctor?”

“Too far.”

Eli pulled Nora’s blanket higher.

“Ma told me to keep us together.”

“You have.”

“So far.”

The words struck harder than accusation.

Silas rose before dawn the next morning.

He went to his bedroom.

Opened the top drawer.

And took out a key he had not used in eight years.

At the end of the hall stood a locked door.

Nora had once touched its brass knob and immediately apologized when Silas told her the room stayed closed.

Now Silas put the key into the lock.

The mechanism resisted before turning.

Dust lay over everything inside.

A narrow bed.

A faded blue quilt.

Three carved horses.

A wooden whistle.

A small chair beside a woman’s sewing basket.

Nora appeared quietly in the doorway.

Silas opened the curtains.

Cold winter sunlight crossed the floor.

“Whose room was it?” she asked.

“My son’s.”

She waited.

“Where is he?”

Silas’s hand rested on the bedpost.

“Gone.”

Nora did not ask how.

She stepped inside and touched the corner of the quilt.

“Is it mine now?”

Silas looked at the room he had preserved as though keeping it unchanged could stop loss from moving forward.

Then he looked at her.

“If you want it.”

Nora nodded.

That afternoon Eli helped carry one mattress from the loft. Silas placed it beside the narrow bed.

“I can sleep upstairs,” Eli said.

“The loft’s too cold.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Nora might.”

Eli understood.

That night both children slept behind the once-locked door.

Silas sat alone at the kitchen table.

Three clean plates stood on the shelf.

He had spent years believing an empty house was easier to survive because nothing inside it could be taken from him.

Now he knew another truth.

Quiet could become its own kind of cold.

And when he finally rose from the table, he carried the three carved horses back down the hall, opened the blue-room door, and set them once more upon the shelf.

Silas’s hand was still on the last carved horse when Nora stirred beneath the faded quilt.

He turned toward the door.

“Mr. Mercer?”

“Go back to sleep.”

She pushed herself onto one elbow and looked toward the shelf.

“You put them back.”

“Yes.”

“Were they his?”

“Yes.”

Nora considered that.

Then she lay down again.

“You can leave them there.”

Silas closed the door softly.

Winter loosened by degrees.

The children changed the same way.

Nora began humming when she swept. Eli stopped hiding bread in his coat. Once, Silas found him asleep against Bishop’s stall with the curry brush still in one hand.

The boy had worked past exhaustion because he still had not fully learned that nobody would turn him out for resting.

Silas took the brush.

Covered him with a horse blanket.

Finished the grooming himself.

On Sundays they began riding into Bellweather.

Silas sat through church at the end of the last pew, where he had once refused every invitation to sit at all. Mrs. Vail, the schoolteacher, altered an old dress for Nora. Silas bought Eli a shirt because the boy’s wrists had grown past his sleeves.

He did not explain the purchase.

Eli did not ask.

In February, Silas drove them to the schoolhouse.

Eli objected immediately.

“I’m needed at the ranch.”

“You’re needed here.”

“I know numbers.”

“You count cattle.”

“That is numbers.”

“Not all of them.”

Nora climbed into the wagon holding a slate.

“Will you come back?”

Silas glanced at her.

“When school lets out.”

“You won’t forget?”

“No.”

He arrived an hour early.

By March, meltwater ran beneath sinking snowbanks.

Calving started in cold rain.

Eli carried towels, filled lanterns, and listened. He did not claim knowledge he lacked. When Silas told him where to stand, he stood there. When a young cow struggled near midnight, Eli held her head while Silas worked.

The calf came weak.

For several terrible seconds it did not move.

Silas cleared its nose and rubbed hard along the ribs.

Eli dropped beside him and copied the motion.

The calf coughed.

Its legs kicked.

From the barn doorway came a sound Silas had never heard from Nora.

Laughter.

She clapped both hands over her mouth.

Eli began laughing too.

The calf survived.

Nora named it Button because of its dark round eyes.

Silas did not argue.

Spring followed.

Eli handed nails while Silas repaired the porch. Nora sat nearby sewing a tiny dress for her wooden doll using thread from the basket in the blue room.

At supper, three plates no longer seemed like an intrusion.

They seemed correct.

Then, on a warm morning in May, Mrs. Vail drove to the ranch alone.

Silas saw the wagon from the north pasture.

Something in the way she stood beside the hitching rail made him ride hard.

“I made an error,” she said.

Silas dismounted.

“What kind?”

“When I entered Eli and Nora in the school register, I marked their parents deceased.”

“They are.”

“I also wrote where they were living.”

Silas waited.

“The county guardian saw it.”

The wind moved softly through the grass.

“What does he want?”

“To know by what authority you’re keeping them.”

Silas tied Bishop.

“They came here.”

“I know.”

“I fed them.”

“I know.”

“They were freezing.”

Mrs. Vail lowered her voice.

“None of that answers the county’s question.”

She handed him an envelope.

A hearing had been ordered.

The county guardian, Amos Rusk, considered Eli and Nora wards awaiting lawful placement.

Silas read farther.

A sheep operation near Rawlins had requested a boy.

A respectable household in Cheyenne had requested a girl.

Silas read the lines again.

“They’re splitting them.”

“I told Rusk that.”

“What did he say?”

“That each placement suits each child.”

Silas crushed the edge of the paper between his fingers.

“They’re brother and sister.”

“He knows.”

“They came together.”

“He knows that too.”

Silas looked toward the road that led to the schoolhouse.

“Can I petition?”

“Yes.”

“What will matter?”

“Your house. Your reputation. Their health. Their schooling.”

She hesitated.

“And whether you can support them permanently.”

Silas had a bank note due in September.

Mrs. Vail knew it.

He saw the knowledge on her face.

“I’ll handle it.”

“They deserve to know.”

Silas’s jaw tightened.

“I said I’ll handle it.”

“They are not a broken fence.”

His eyes lifted.

Mrs. Vail did not step back.

“I know what they are.”

“Then tell them.”

But Silas did what he had always done when fear demanded words.

He worked.

He rode to the bank before daylight.

He spoke with Reverend Pike, Mr. Tally, the doctor who had examined Nora, and an attorney above the saloon.

The attorney studied the notice.

“Rusk will say you accepted Eli for labor.”

“I enrolled him in school.”

“He’ll say you’re unmarried.”

“I can feed them.”

“That was not my point.”

Silas leaned over the desk.

“What does the judge need?”

“Proof this is more than winter charity. Proof you can support them. Proof the ranch is secure.”

Silas looked through the window.

Bishop waited at the rail.

Behind him stood Silas’s best breeding bull.

The attorney followed his gaze.

“You sell that animal, you weaken the herd for years.”

“I know.”

“You could wait until September to clear the note.”

“The hearing isn’t in September.”

The bull sold.

The bank note disappeared.

Fourteen dollars remained.

Silas carried the receipt home inside his coat.

Eli met him in the barn.

“You sold the bull.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Needed the money.”

The boy’s face tightened.

“Are we costing too much?”

Silas stopped unsaddling Bishop.

“No.”

“Mr. Tally asked if we were leaving.”

“Tally asks too many questions.”

“Mrs. Vail looks at us strange.”

Silas hung the bridle on its peg.

“I’m handling it.”

“Handling what?”

Silas felt the answer in his throat.

He knew what he should say.

Instead he said, “Go inside.”

Eli’s face closed.

“Yes, sir.”

The distance in those two words frightened Silas more than anger would have.

Two days before the hearing, Eli disappeared.

Mrs. Vail arrived near dusk with Nora.

“I thought he came ahead.”

Silas looked at the wagon.

“Where is he?”

Nora’s lower lip shook.

“He heard Mr. Rusk.”

Silas went still.

“He heard what?”

“That they’re taking him to the sheep ranch.”

“And Nora?”

The teacher answered.

“Cheyenne.”

Silas was saddling Bishop before she finished.

He found Eli three miles east of town walking beside the railroad track.

The canvas sack was once again over his shoulder.

The same sack he had carried to Mercer Ranch in November.

Silas rode beside him.

“Get on.”

Eli kept walking.

“Where are you going?”

“Rawlins.”

“That’s more than a hundred miles.”

“I’ll get there.”

Silas dismounted.

“And Nora?”

The boy stopped.

“I thought maybe you could keep her.”

Silas stared at him.

“If I go myself,” Eli said, “maybe they won’t come for her.”

“That isn’t how it works.”

“Then tell me how it works.”

Silas had faced injured cattle, winter storms, debt, death, and fourteen empty years with more composure than he possessed in that moment.

Eli’s eyes filled.

“You should keep Nora. She’s little. She doesn’t eat much. She can gather eggs.”

“Eli—”

“I’ll tell them you never wanted me.”

Silas reached for the sack.

The boy jerked away.

“You didn’t.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

The final word broke.

Silas looked at the child who had spent months treating every meal as temporary because the grown man responsible for him had assumed bread, boots, school, and shelter were explanation enough.

All winter Silas had hidden behind work.

Now that silence had sent a twelve-year-old walking toward a sheep ranch to sacrifice himself for his sister.

Silas held out his hand.

“Give me the sack.”

Eli did not.

Silas tried again.

“Come home.”

The boy’s chin trembled.

“Is it home?”

Silas answered before fear could stop him.

“Yes.”

Eli stood motionless.

“Both of us?”

“Both.”

“What if the judge says no?”

Silas took the sack when Eli finally released it.

“Then he’ll have to say it to me more than once.”

They rode home after dark.

Nora waited at the kitchen table in her school dress.

Silas took down three plates.

One for Nora.

One for Eli.

One for himself.

Then he placed the bank receipt beside his own plate.

“I sold the bull to clear the note.”

Eli stared at the paper.

“Why?”

“Because Rusk trusts paid notes more than people.”

Nora looked between them.

“Are you trying to keep us?”

Silas met her eyes.

“Yes.”

Eli whispered, “You never said.”

“I should have.”

Silas sat at the table.

The children sat with him.

For the first time, there was no work between them.

No fence.

No horse.

No kindling box.

Only the question Silas had spent six months avoiding.

Eli asked it.

“Why do you want us?”

Silas looked at his hands.

Those hands had closed a room eight years earlier after his wife and son were gone.

Those hands had set two dusty plates on a table in November without understanding what the act meant.

He raised his eyes.

“The house was empty.”

Eli waited.

Silas forced himself to continue.

“Then it wasn’t.”

Nora’s fingers closed around her spoon.

Silas looked at both children.

“If Judge Hale asks tomorrow what I intend, I’m telling him I mean to petition for both of you. Not until spring. Not until the work is done. For good, if he’ll allow it.”

Eli swallowed.

“Both?”

Silas nodded.

“Both or neither.”

Eli looked at Silas across the kitchen table as if he had finally been handed the one thing he had never dared ask for plainly.

A future that included Nora.

Nora broke the silence first.

“What if the judge doesn’t like you?”

Silas considered the question.

“He wouldn’t be alone.”

A small sound escaped Eli.

Not quite laughter.

Close.

Silas pushed the stew toward them.

“Eat. We leave early.”

The hearing was held in the Bellweather schoolhouse because repairs were underway at the county building.

Judge Hale sat behind Mrs. Vail’s desk.

Amos Rusk occupied a smaller table with three neat folders.

Silas entered with Eli on one side and Nora on the other.

Half the town seemed to have found business nearby.

Mr. Tally stood close to the stove.

Reverend Pike sat beside the doctor.

The blacksmith took up most of a bench.

Mrs. Vail remained near the windows.

Silas disliked crowds.

He disliked being examined.

He disliked speaking about what mattered where other men could hear him.

None of those dislikes mattered enough to make him leave.

Rusk began with facts.

Silas Mercer was unmarried.

He had no blood relation to Elias or Nora Carter.

He had accepted the children without county authorization.

Elias performed chores on a working cattle ranch.

The property stood eleven miles from town.

Then Rusk explained the alternatives.

The sheep operation near Rawlins could provide Eli food, lodging, and useful employment.

A family in Cheyenne could provide Nora a respectable household.

Judge Hale interrupted.

“They would be separated?”

Rusk straightened a paper.

“The placements address their individual circumstances.”

Silas felt Eli stiffen beside him.

The boy’s fingers tightened around the edge of the chair.

Silas placed one hand over them.

Not to hold him there.

Only to remind him he was not sitting alone.

Judge Hale looked toward Silas.

“What do you offer these children?”

Silas stood.

The room seemed much smaller.

“A house.”

He paused.

“Food. School. Work when work is proper. Rest when rest is proper.”

Rusk watched him.

Judge Hale continued.

“Financial security?”

Silas removed the bank receipt and gave it to the judge.

“The ranch is clear.”

Rusk requested the paper.

After examining it, he looked up.

“You sold valuable breeding stock three days before this hearing.”

“Yes.”

“A bull important to the future quality of your herd.”

“Yes.”

“The sale reduced your future earning advantage.”

“Yes.”

Rusk frowned.

“Then why make it?”

Silas looked directly at him.

“Because the hearing was today.”

A murmur went through the benches.

Judge Hale raised his eyes.

“Mr. Mercer, are you asking for temporary guardianship?”

Silas had rehearsed answers with the attorney.

Safe answers.

Measured answers.

Answers designed not to frighten a judge with too much certainty.

He ignored them.

“I intend to adopt them if the law allows.”

Beside him, Eli stopped breathing for a moment.

Judge Hale looked from the boy to Nora.

“Both children?”

Silas thought of November.

A twelve-year-old boy standing ten paces from the chopping block.

A little girl nearly hidden beneath a quilt.

Can my sister stay too?

“Both.”

Rusk opened another folder.

“Mr. Mercer, affection is not the only matter before us.”

“I know.”

“A household containing a young girl presents concerns. You cannot provide every form of instruction a woman might.”

Mrs. Vail stood.

Rusk turned sharply.

Judge Hale lifted a hand.

“Let her speak.”

Mrs. Vail faced the judge.

“Mr. Mercer brought Nora to me when she needed clothing altered. He enrolled both children in school. For the first three weeks, he arrived nearly an hour early every afternoon.”

Silas looked at her.

She continued.

“Nora was afraid he might forget to collect them.”

Judge Hale glanced toward Nora.

“Did he?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

The doctor stood next.

“When I first examined the children, both showed signs of prolonged poor nourishment. Nora had suffered exposure before reaching the ranch. They are healthy now.”

Mr. Tally cleared his throat.

“I ought to say something.”

Silas narrowed his eyes.

Tally ignored him.

“I sent Eli to Mercer Ranch.”

Judge Hale leaned back.

“On whose authority?”

Tally looked uncomfortable.

“None worth mentioning, apparently.”

A few people smiled.

“I thought Mercer might give the boy winter work. I didn’t know about Nora.”

He looked toward Silas.

“When Mercer discovered there were two children, he kept two.”

Silas almost objected to the word kept.

Then Reverend Pike rose.

“I had nowhere proper for either child.”

He turned toward the judge.

“Mr. Mercer did.”

Silence settled.

Judge Hale looked at Eli.

“Elias, do you understand what this hearing concerns?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where do you wish to live?”

Eli’s eyes moved toward Silas.

Then he answered.

“At Mercer Ranch.”

“And your sister?”

“With me.”

Judge Hale turned to Nora.

“Is that what you want?”

She nodded.

“You must say it aloud.”

Nora tightened both hands around the wooden doll she had carried from Bellweather six months earlier.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why do you wish to remain there?”

The room waited.

Nora looked at Silas.

Then at Eli.

Then toward the schoolhouse door, as though perhaps she could see eleven miles through it to the ranch kitchen.

“Because my place is already set.”

Silas dropped his gaze.

For months he had believed that first meal had been nothing more than beans, bread, and necessity.

Nora had understood before he had.

Judge Hale gathered the papers.

“The court grants Silas Mercer temporary guardianship of Elias Carter and Nora Carter for six months.”

Eli’s shoulders tightened.

The judge continued.

“Mrs. Vail will visit the home monthly. Both children will remain enrolled in school. The arrangement will be reviewed at the end of six months.”

Rusk opened his mouth.

Judge Hale raised a hand.

“And while this order remains in force, the children will not be separated.”

Eli released a breath.

Nora reached beneath the desk and found Silas’s hand.

He closed his fingers around hers.

Outside the schoolhouse, people gathered around them.

Silas endured it for nearly four minutes.

Then he pointed toward the wagon.

“Home.”

Eli grinned.

This time the smile did not vanish.

The six months that followed were not effortless.

That mattered.

Silas did not suddenly become an easy man.

Eli did not suddenly become a child who trusted permanence.

Nora did not forget hunger because the pantry was full.

They learned one another slowly.

Mrs. Vail came each month as ordered.

The first time, she found Silas at the kitchen table attempting to explain long division while Eli insisted the teacher’s method was needlessly complicated.

The second time, Nora showed her the blue room.

Two beds now stood there.

Two coat hooks had been mounted near the door.

School slates rested beside the window.

Three carved horses remained on the shelf.

Nora had placed her faceless wooden doll between them.

Mrs. Vail noticed.

She said nothing.

Silas began paying Eli small wages for ranch work done beyond ordinary household chores.

The first time he handed the boy coins, Eli stared at them.

“What’s this?”

“Yours.”

“For what?”

“The north fence.”

“I live here.”

“So do I. Work still has value.”

Eli turned the money over in his palm.

“Can I buy something for Nora?”

“You can buy whatever you decide.”

The boy saved most of it.

Nora learned to gather eggs without counting each one as a debt she owed the household.

She still broke them sometimes.

Silas still responded the same way.

“One egg.”

By late summer, she had begun correcting him.

“Seven left.”

Silas would nod gravely.

“A disaster.”

She knew by then when he was joking.

That was new too.

The ranch changed in small ways.

There were books near the stove.

Boots crowded the door.

A red wool cap appeared in impossible places.

Bishop developed a habit of searching Eli’s pockets for oats.

Button grew into an energetic calf that Nora considered personally responsible for.

Silas never again ate alone at the corner of the table unless both children were at school.

Even then, he found himself sitting in his usual chair and looking toward their empty places as though the house had become temporarily misarranged.

When Judge Hale arrived for the six-month review, he came to the ranch himself.

Silas saw the buggy approaching and felt the old instinct to prepare.

To make everything appear orderly.

To prove competence.

Then he stopped.

The place did not need staging.

Eli was repairing a gate hinge while Silas watched.

Not because Silas could not do it.

Because Eli could.

Nora sat in the kitchen reading aloud from a schoolbook while stew simmered on the stove.

She stumbled over a word.

Silas corrected her from the doorway.

She frowned.

Mrs. Vail had taught her to check uncertain words rather than accept his answer.

She did.

Silas had been wrong.

Judge Hale noticed.

“Does that happen often?” he asked.

Nora considered.

“Sometimes.”

Silas folded his arms.

“Rarely.”

“Sometimes,” Eli called from outside.

The judge smiled.

He inspected the ranch.

The cattle were healthy.

The bank note was gone.

The schoolbooks were used.

The children had winter clothing ready.

There was enough stored food.

The blue room held two beds, two hooks, meadow flowers in a jar, school slates, the wooden doll, and the carved horses.

Judge Hale stood before the shelf.

“Those yours?”

Nora shook her head.

“They were his son’s.”

Silas watched from the doorway.

The judge looked at him.

Silas did not explain further.

He no longer felt compelled to hide the room or empty it of memory.

His son had existed.

That grief belonged in the house.

So did Eli.

So did Nora.

One truth no longer threatened the other.

Judge Hale stayed for supper.

Nora set four places.

Silas served beans.

Eli apologized to the judge for them.

Nora said Silas always made too many.

Judge Hale ate two bowls.

When supper ended, he removed papers from his coat.

He placed them on the same table where Eli had once asked why Silas wanted them.

Then he signed the permanent guardianship order.

Eli read every line.

Nora asked whether permanent meant nobody could send them to different places.

Judge Hale answered carefully.

“It means Mr. Mercer is now your lawful guardian. He is responsible for you both.”

She looked at Silas.

“For how long?”

Silas answered before the judge could.

“As long as you need one.”

Eli lowered the paper.

“And after?”

Silas looked at him.

“After that, I suppose you’ll spend your time telling me I’m doing ranch work wrong.”

Eli smiled.

“Probably.”

The second winter came early.

By November, snow already covered the northern pasture.

But Mercer Ranch entered that winter differently.

The roof had been repaired.

Earth had been banked against the foundation.

Eli had stacked enough wood beneath the shed roof to make Silas suspect the boy intended to defeat January personally.

Nora had helped Mrs. Vail preserve food, and the pantry shelves held neat rows of jars.

She wanted to label them.

Silas told her he could recognize beans without written assistance.

She labeled them anyway.

On the first night of the hard snow, wind moved down from the mountains and struck the house.

Silas checked the cattle.

Eli checked the woodpile.

Nora checked Button twice despite being told once was sufficient.

Then all three gathered around the kitchen table.

Silas filled the bowls.

Nora wore her old red wool cap indoors.

Eli pointed at it.

“You know the roof doesn’t leak now.”

“It helps me think.”

“It blocks thinking.”

“You don’t have enough to block.”

Silas sat down.

They continued arguing.

He listened.

A year earlier, he might have called the noise unnecessary.

Now he understood it as evidence.

Nora suddenly stopped.

She counted the places.

“One for Eli. One for me. One for you.”

“That makes three,” Eli said.

“I know.”

She looked toward the cupboard.

Silas followed her gaze.

Three clean plates still stood behind the plates they used.

They were no longer dusty.

Nora turned toward the window.

Snow raced through darkness beyond the glass.

“What if someone else comes?”

Eli looked at Silas.

The question could have meant a traveler.

Another hungry child.

Somebody stranded between Bellweather and somewhere farther west.

Silas remembered Eli at the chopping block.

The torn coat.

Red cracked fingers holding out Tally’s note.

He remembered Nora beside the broken handcart, so still in the dead grass he had mistaken her for baggage.

He remembered believing that survival meant keeping his table empty enough that loss could never surprise him again.

He stood.

Reached into the cupboard.

Took down another plate.

And set it at the empty side of the table.

“Then there’ll be a place.”

Nora smiled.

Eli nodded as if the answer required no further explanation.

They began eating.

Outside, winter pressed against the Wyoming house with the same indifference it had shown every year before.

It searched the roof.

The windows.

The door.

Inside, the stove burned steadily.

Four places waited around a table once used by one man.

The blue room at the end of the hall remained open.

Three carved horses stood beside a little wooden doll.

Two children who had once measured every bite against the possibility of tomorrow argued over whose turn it had been to feed Bishop.

And Silas Mercer, who had once believed an empty house was easier to keep, sat among the noise and understood that a home was not a place protected from loss.

It was a place where people could arrive frightened, hungry, uncertain of whether they were wanted—

and find that someone had already made room.

The wind kept searching for a way in.

This time, it found none.