s,
restless, and excited. But always the runners creaked on, and always
the two felt sure they were nearing the place they sought. Exposed so
long in this bitter air, they were cut through with the chill, in spite
of all the clothing they could wear, for the norther of the plains has
quality of its own to make its victims helpless. The presence of the
storm was awful, colossal, terrifying. Sometimes they were confused,
seeing dark, looming bulks in the vague air, though a moment later they
noted it to be but the packing of the drift in the atmosphere.
Sometimes they were gloomy, not hoping for escape, though still the
horses went gallantly on, driven for the most part down a wind which
they never would have faced.

"The wind's just on my right cheek," said Sam, putting up a mitten.
"But where's it gone?"

"You're frozen, man!" cried Franklin. "Pull up, and let me rub your
face."

"No, no, we can't stop," said Sam, catching up some snow and rubbing
his white cheek as he drove.

"Keep the wind on your right cheek--we're over the Sand Run now, I
think, and on the long ridge, back of the White Woman. It can't be
over two mile more.--Git along, boys. Whoa! What's the matter there?"

The horses had stopped, plunging at something which they could not
pass. "Good God!" cried Franklin, "whose fence is that? Are we at
Buford's?"

"No," said Sam, "this must be at old man Hancock's. He fenced across
the old road, and we had to make a jog around his d----d broom-corn
field. It's only a couple o' miles now to Buford's."

"Shall I tear down the fence?" asked Franklin.

"No, it's no use; it'd only let us in his field, an' maybe we couldn't
hit the trail on the fur side. We got to follow the fence a way. May
God everlastingly damn any man that'll fence up the free range!--Whoa,
Jack! Whoa, Bill! Git out o' here! Git up!"

They tried to parallel the fence, but the horses edged away from the
wind continually, so that it was difficult to keep eye upon the
infrequent posts of the meagre, straggling fence that this man had put
upon the "public lands."

"Hold on, Sam!" cried Franklin. "Let me out."

"That's right, Cap," said Sam. "Git out an' go on ahead a way, then
holler to me, so'st I kin come up to you. When we git around the
corner we'll be all right."

But when they got around the corner they were not all right. At such
times the mind of man is thrown off its balance, so that it does
strange and irr