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“Now boys, git!” he shouted to the humped and wind-ruffled team, and they sprang away into the currents of powdered snow, which were running along the ground in streams as smooth as oil and almost as silent.

The sleigh rose and fell over the ridges like a ship. Off in the west the sun was shining through a peculiar smoky cloud, gray-white, vapory, with glittering edges where it lay against the cold, yellow sky. Every sign was ominous, and the long drive seemed a desperate venture to the woman, but she trusted her lover as a child depends upon a father. She nestled close down under his left arm, clothed in its shaggy buffalo-skin coat, a splendid elation in her heart. She was at last with the strong man to whom she belonged.

This elation did not last long. Her sense of safety died slowly out, just as the blood chilled in her veins. She was not properly clothed, and her feet soon ached with cold, and she drew her breath through her teeth to prevent the utterance of moans of pain. She was never free now from the feeling of guardianship which is the delight and the haunting uneasiness of motherhood. “I must be warm,” she thought, “for its sake.”

She heard his voice above.

“I never’ll settle in a prairie country again–not but what I’ve done well enough as a land-agent, but there’s no big thing here for anybody–nothing for the land-agent now.”

“Oh, Jim, I’m so cold! I’m afraid I can’t stand it!” she broke out, desperately.

“There, there!” he said, as if she were a child. “Cuddle down on my knees. Be brave. You’ll get warmer soon as we turn south.”

Nevertheless, he was alarmed as he looked about him. He gathered her close in his arm, holding the robe about her, and urged on his brave team. They were hardly five miles from the shanty, and yet the storm was becoming frightful, even to his resolute and experienced brain. The circle of his vision had narrowed till it was impossible at times to see fifty rods away. The push of the wind grew each moment mightier. A multitudinous, soft, rushing, whispering roar was rising round them, mixed with a hissing, rustling sound like the passing of invisible, winged hosts. He could feel his woman shake with cold, but she spoke no further word of complaint.

He turned the horses suddenly to the left, speaking through his teeth.

“We must make the store,” he said. “We must have more wraps. We’ll stop at the Ranch and get warm, and then go on. The wind may lull–anyway, it will be at our backs.”

As the team turned to the south the air seemed a little less savage, but Blanche still writhed with pain. Her hands suffered most; her feet had grown numb.

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Rivers cheerily repeated, but he began to understand her desperate condition.

A quarter of an hour later his team drew up before the door of the ranch-house. It seemed deliciously warm in the lee of the long walls.

“Well, here we are. Now we’ll go in and get warm.”

“What if Mr. Bailey is there?” she stammered, with stiff lips.

“No matter, you must not freeze.”

He shouted, “Hello, Bailey!” There was no reply, and he leaped out. “Come, you must go in.” He took her in his arms and carried her into the room, dim, yet gloriously warm by contrast with the outside air. “Feels good here, doesn’t it? Now, while I roll up some blankets, you warm–We must be quick. I’ll find you some overshoes.”

Blanche staggered on her numb feet, which felt like clods. She was weak with cold, and everything grew dark before her.

“Oh, Jim, I can’t go on. I’ll freeze. I’ll die–I know I shall. My feet are frozen solid.”

He dragged a chair to the hearth of the stove, in which a coal fire lay. His action was bold and confident.