ft the gold camp eight days
before.

Miss O'Neill knew that Swiftwater Pete was anxious, and though she was
not yet afraid, the girl understood the reason for it. The road ran
through the heart of a vast snow-field, the surface of which was being
swept by a screaming wind. The air was full of sifted white dust, and
the road furrow was rapidly filling. Soon it would be obliterated.
Already the horses were panting and struggling as they ploughed forward.
Sheba tramped behind the stage-driver and in her tracks walked Mrs.
Olson, the other passenger.

Through the muffled scream of the storm Swiftwater shouted back to
Sheba. "You wanta keep close to me."

She nodded her head. His order needed no explanation. The world was
narrowing to a lane whose walls she could almost touch with her fingers.
A pall of white wrapped them. Upon them beat a wind of stinging sleet.
Nothing could be seen but the blurred outlines of the stage and the
driver's figure.

The bitter cold searched through Sheba's furs to her soft flesh and the
blast of powdered ice beat upon her face. The snow was getting deeper
as the road filled. Once or twice she stumbled and fell. Her strength
ebbed, and the hinges of her knees gave unexpectedly beneath her. How
long was it, she asked herself, that Macdonald had said men could live
in a blizzard?

Staggering blindly forward, Sheba bumped into the driver. He had drawn
up to give the horses a moment's rest before sending them plunging at
the snow again.

"No chance," he called into the young woman's ear. "Never make Smith's
in the world. Goin' try for miner's cabin up gulch little way."

The team stuck in the drifts, fought through, and was blocked again ten
yards beyond. A dozen times the horses gave up, answered the sting of
the whip by diving head first at the white banks, and were stopped by
fresh snow-combs.

Pete gave up the fight. He began unhitching the horses, while Sheba and
Mrs. Olson, clinging to each other's hands, stumbled forward to join
him. The words he shouted across the back of a horse were almost lost in
the roar of the shrieking wind.

"... heluvatime ... ride ... gulch," Sheba made out.

He flung Mrs. Olson astride one of the wheelers and helped Sheba to the
back of the right leader. Swiftwater clambered upon its mate himself.

The girl paid no attention to where they were going. The urge of life
was so faint within her that she did not greatly care whether she lived
or died. He