was
just discernible in his voice. "I scarcely think that was necessary,
sir. It is, of course, sufficient for me to have rendered a small
service to the distinguished family which has given me an opportunity;
of proving my right to recognition, and neither you, nor Miss
Barrington, need have any apprehension that I will presume upon it!"

Barrington wheeled round. "You have the Courthorne temper, at least,
and perhaps I deserved this display of it. You acted with commendable
discretion in coming straight to me--and the astonishment I got drove
the other aspect of the question out of my head. If it hadn't been for
you, my niece would have frozen."

"I'm afraid I spoke unguardedly, sir, but I am very tired. Still, if
you will wait a few minutes, I will get the horses out without
troubling the hired man."

Barrington made a little gesture of comprehension, and then shook his
head. "You are fit for nothing further, and need rest and sleep."

"You will want somebody, sir," said Winston. "The snow is very loose
and deep."

He went out, and Barrington, who looked after him with a curious
expression in his face, nodded twice as if in approval. Twenty minutes
later, he took his place in the sleigh that slid away from the Grange,
which lay a league behind it when the sunrise flamed across the
prairie. The wind had gone, and there was only a pitiless brightness
and a devastating cold, while the snow lay blown in wisps, dried dusty
and fine as flour by the frost. It had no cohesion, the runners sank
in it, and Winston was almost waist-deep when he dragged the
floundering team through the drifts. A day had passed since he had
eaten anything worth mention, but he held on with an endurance which
his companion, who was incapable of rendering him assistance, wondered
at. There were belts of deep snow the almost buried sleigh must be
dragged through, and tracts from which the wind had swept the dusty
covering, leaving bare the grasses the runners would not slide over,
where the team came to a standstill, and could scarcely be urged to
continue the struggle.

At last, however, the loghouse rose, a lonely mound of whiteness, out
of the prairie, and Winston drew in a deep breath of contentment when a
dusky figure appeared for a moment in the doorway. His weariness
seemed to fall from him, and once more his companion wondered at the
tirelessness of the man, as floundering on foot beside them he urged
the team through