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 rep