xclusive autocrat of Jerome Thaine, in Virginia Thaine
developed into a pride of conquest for the good of others. It was this
pride and the Thaine will to do as she pleased in defiance of the prairie
perils that sent her now on this errand of mercy for a neighbor in need.
And she took little measure of the reality of the journey. But she was
prudent enough to stop at the Sunflower Inn and make ready for it. She
slipped on a warm jacket under her heavy cloak, and put on her thickest
gloves and overshoes. She wound a long red scarf about her neck and
swathed her head in the gray nubia. Then she mounted her horse for her
long, hard ride.

The little sod house with all its plainness seemed very cosy as she took
leave of it, and the woman instinct for home made its outcry in her when
she turned her face resolutely from its sheltering warmth and felt the
force of the north wind whipping mercilessly upon her. But she steeled
herself to meet the cold, and her spirits rose with the effort.

"You are a mean little wind. Not half as big as the September zephyrs. Do
your worst, you can't scare me," she cried, tucking her head down against
its biting breath.

Upon the main trail the snow that had fallen after midnight deepened in
the lower places as the wind whirled it from the prairie swells. It was
not smooth traveling, although the direction of the trail was clear enough
at first.

Virginia's heart bounded hopefully as Juno covered mile after mile with
that persistent, steady canter that means everything good for a long ride.
But the open plains were bitterly cold and the wind grew fiercer as the
hours passed. High spirits and hope began to give place to determination
and endurance. Virginia shut her teeth in a dogged resolve not to give up.
Indeed, she dared not give up. She must go on. A life depended on her now,
and two lives might be forfeited if she let this unending wind chill her
to forgetfulness.

And so, alone in a white cruelty of solitary land, bounded only by the
gray cruelty of the sky, with a dimming trail before her under a deeper
snowfall, and with long miles behind her, she struggled on.

She tried to think of everything cheerful and good. She tried to find
comfort in the help she would take to Jim. Truly, she was not nearly so
cold now and she was very weary and a wee bit sleepy. A tendency to droop
in the saddle was overcoming her. She roused herself quickly, and with a
jerk at the reins plunged forward a