already he was there and saw the
bare trees, bearing their burden of snow, and the placid surface, half
frozen over, and on the southern shore, that faintly rippled under its
skimming of ice, something dark floating. He saw the floating black
hair, and the dead eyes, open, as if in accusation of the grim
injustice of it all.

He hurried through the drifted snow, as fast as his spent strength
would permit, stumbling once or twice over some obstruction, and
covered the weary distance to the lake.

About a hundred yards from the lake Dave saw something that made his
heart knock against his ribs and his breath come short, as if he had
been running. It was Anna's gray cloak. It lay spread out on the snow
as if it had been discarded hastily; there were footprints of a woman's
shoes near by; some of them leading toward the lake, others away from
it, as if she might have come and her courage failed her at the last
moment. The cape had not the faintest trace of snow on its upturned
surface. It must, therefore, have been discarded lately, after the
snowstorm had ceased this morning.

Dave continued his search in an agony of apprehension. The sun faintly
struggled with the mass of gray cloud, revealing a world of white. He
had wandered in the direction of a clump of cedars, and remembered
pointing the place out to her in the autumn as the scene of some boyish
adventure, which to commemorate he had cut his name on one of the
trees. Association, more than any hope of finding her, led him to the
cedars--and she was there. She had fallen, apparently, from cold and
exhaustion. He bent down close to the white, still face that gave no
sign of life. He called her name, he kissed her, but there was no
response--it was too late.

Dave looked at the little figure prostrate in the snow, and despair for
a time deprived him of all thought. Then the lifelong habit of being
practical asserted itself. Unconsciousness from long exposure to cold,
he knew, resembled death, but warmth and care would often revive the
fluttering spark. If there was a chance in a thousand, Dave was
prepared to fight the world for it.

He lifted Anna tenderly and started back for the shed where he had
fought Sanderson. Frail as she was, it seemed to him, as he plunged
through the drifts, that his strength would never hold out till they
reached their destination. Inch by inch he struggled for every step of
the way, and the sweat dripped from him as if