tle, lay, a shapeless figure, across her feet, but he
answered nothing when she spoke to him.

The team went far at the gallop, and the beat of hoofs rose up, dulled
a little, in a wild staccato drumming. There was an insistent
crunching beneath the runners, and a fine mist of snow beat against the
sleigh, but the girl leaning forward, a tense figure, with nerveless
hands clenched upon the reins, saw nothing but the blue-grey riband of
trail that steadily unrolled itself before her. At length, however, a
blurred mass, which she knew to be a birch bluff, grew out of the white
waste, and presently a cluster of darker smudges shot up into the shape
of a log-house, sod stables, and strawpile granary. A minute or two
later, she pulled the team up with an effort, and a man, who flung the
door of the house open, came out into the moonlight. He stopped, and
apparently gazed at her in astonishment.

"Miss Creighton!" he said.

"Don't stand there," said Sally. "Take the near horse's head, and lead
them right up to the door."

"What's the matter?" the man asked stupidly.

"Lead the team up," said Sally. "Jump, if you can."

It was supposed on that part of the prairie that Sproatly had never
moved with much expedition in his life, but that night he sprang
towards the horses at a commanding wave of the girl's hand. He started
when he saw his comrade lying in the bottom of the sleigh, but Sally
disregarded his hurried questions.

"Help me to get him out," she said, when he stopped the team. "Keep
his right leg as straight as you can. I don't want to lift him. We
must slide him in."

They did it somehow, though the girl was breathless before their task,
which the snow made a little easier, was finished, and the perspiration
started from the man. Then Sally turned to the latter.

"Get into the sleigh, and don't spare the team," she said. "Drive over
to Watson's, and bring him along. You can tell him your partner's
broke his leg, and some of his ribs. Start right now!"

Sproatly did her bidding, and when the door closed behind him she flung
off her blanket coat and thrust fresh billets into the stove. Then she
looked for some coffee in the store cupboard, and set on a kettle;
after which she sat down on the floor by Hawtrey's side. He lay still,
with the thick driving robe beneath him, and though the colour was
creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently
quite insensible of her pres