The river widened into a small lake, and here the wind struck her in the face with such force that her weight was taken from the strap, and Kazan dragged the sledge alone.  A few inches of snow impeded her as much as a foot had done before.  Little by little she dropped back.  Kazan forged to her side, every ounce of his magnificent strength in the traces.  By the time they were on the river channel again, Joan was at the back of the sledge, following in the trail made by Kazan.  She was powerless to help him.  She felt more and more the leaden weight of her legs.  There was but one hope—­and that was the forest.  If they did not reach it soon, within half an hour, she would be able to go no farther.  Over and over again she moaned a prayer for her baby as she struggled on.  She fell in the snow-drifts.  Kazan and the sledge became only a dark blotch to her.  And then, all at once, she saw that they were leaving her.  They were not more than twenty feet ahead of her—­but the blotch seemed to be a vast distance away.  Every bit of life and strength in her body was now bent upon reaching the sledge—­and baby Joan.

It seemed an interminable time before she gained.  With the sledge only six feet ahead of her she struggled for what seemed to her to be an hour before she could reach out and touch it.  With a moan she flung herself forward, and fell upon it.  She no longer heard the wailing of the storm.  She no longer felt discomfort.  With her face in the furs under which baby Joan was buried, there came to her with swiftness and joy a vision of warmth and home.  And then the vision faded away, and was followed by deep night.

Kazan stopped in the trail.  He came back then and sat down upon his haunches beside her, waiting for her to move and speak.  But she was very still.  He thrust his nose into her loose hair.  A whine rose in his throat, and suddenly he raised his head and sniffed in the face of the wind.  Something came to him with that wind.  He muzzled Joan again, hut she did not stir.  Then he went forward, and stood in his traces, ready for the pull, and looked hack at her.  Still she did not move or speak, and Kazan’s whine gave place to a sharp excited bark.

The strange thing in the wind came to him stronger for a moment.  He began to pull.  The sledge-runners had frozen to the snow, and it took every ounce of his strength to free them.  Twice during the next five minutes he stopped and sniffed the air.  The third time that he halted, in a drift of snow, he returned to Joan’s side again, and whined to awaken her.  Then he tugged again at the end of his traces, and foot by foot he dragged the sledge through the drift.  Beyond the drift there was a stretch of clear ice, and here Kazan rested.  During a lull in the wind the scent came to him stronger than before.