ould be blown off and against Sylvia, they went on.

"What will they think has become of us?" said Sylvia.

But the only thought it brought into Harley's mind at that moment was
the interruption it would cause to the campaign. He was sorry for Jimmy
Grayson. He felt that the girl's step was growing less steady. Obviously
she was becoming weaker.

"Lean against me," he said; "I am strong enough for both."

She said nothing, but he felt her shoulder press more heavily against
him. He drew his hat-brim down that he might keep the whirling flakes
from his eyes, and staggered blindly forward. His knee struck against
something hard, and, putting out his hand, he touched stone and earth.

"Here is a hill," he said, without joy, and he uncovered his eyes again
to seek shelter. He did not find it there, but farther on, in another
hill, was a rocky alcove that in earlier days had been the den of some
wild animal. It was carpeted with old dead leaves, and it faced the
east, while the wind and the snow came from the southwest. It was only a
hollow, running back three or four feet, and one must crouch to enter;
but except near the door there was no snow in it, and the storm drove by
in vain.

"Here is our house, Sylvia," exclaimed Harley, with a strong ring in his
voice, and he drew her in. He raked up the old, musty, dead leaves in a
heap, and made her sit upon them. He was the man now, the masculine
animal who ruled, and she obeyed without protest.

"Hark to the storm! How the wind whistles!" he said.

Pyramids and columns of snow whirled by the mouth of their little
hollow, and they crouched close together. Out upon the plain the shriek
of the wind was weird and unearthly. Now and then some blast, fiercer
and more tortuous than the rest, drove a fringe of snow so far into the
hollow that it fell a wet skim across their faces.

Sylvia did not move or speak for a long time, and when Harley looked out
again the snow was thinner but the wind was still high, and it was
growing much colder. The blast lashed his face with a whip of ice.

He turned back in alarm, and took Sylvia's hand in his. It was cold, and
it seemed to him that the blood in it had ceased to run.

"Sylvia! Sylvia!" he cried in fear, and not knowing what else to say.
"What is the matter?"

"This, I think, is death," she replied, in sleepy content.

It was dark in the hollow, whether the darkness of coming night or the
darkness of the storm Harley did not