being to share the danger with him! Not a hand to
help!

He looked for chaparral, something that might serve as a sort of
shelter, but he had left the last clump of it behind, and now he turned
and rode directly north, hoping that he might find some deep depression
between the swells where he and his horse, in a fashion, could hide.

Meanwhile the Norther came down with astonishing speed. The temperature
fell like a plummet. The moan of the wind rose to a shriek, and cold
clouds of dust were swept against Ned and his horse. Then snow mingled
with the dust and both beat upon them. Ned felt his horse shivering
under him, and he shivered, too, despite his will. It had turned so dark
that he could no longer tell where he was going, and he used the wide
brim of his hat to protect himself from the sand.

Soon it was black as night, and the snow was driving in a hurricane. The
wind, unchecked by forest or hill, screamed with a sound almost human.
Ned dismounted and walked in the lee of his horse. The animal turned his
head and nuzzled his master, as if he could give him warmth.

Ned hoped that the storm would blow itself out in an hour or two, but
his hope was vain. The darkness did not abate. The wind rose instead of
falling, and the snow thickened. It lay on the plain several inches
deep, and the walking grew harder. At last the two, the boy and the
horse, stopped. Ned knew that they had come into some kind of a
depression, and the full force of the hurricane passed partly over their
heads.

It was yet very dark, and the driving snow scarcely permitted him to
open his eyes, but by feeling about a little he found that one side of
the dip was covered with a growth of dwarf bushes. He led the horse into
the lower edge of these, where some protection was secured, and,
crouching once more in the lee of the animal, he unfolded the two
blankets, which he wrapped closely about himself to the eyes.

Ned, for the first time since the Norther rushed down upon him, felt
secure. He would not freeze to death, he would escape the fate that
sometimes overtook lone hunters or travelers upon those vast plains.
Warmth from the blankets began gradually to replace the chill in his
bones, and the horse and the bushes together protected his face from the
driven snow which had been cutting like hail. He even had, in some
degree, the sense of comfort which one feels when safe inside four walls
with a storm raging past the windows. The horse wh