“Did you meet anyone?” Fred asked, quickly.  “Not a soul!  I tell you you and I are the only crazy ones to-night.”

Fred considered a minute.

“I’ll take you on your way,” he said.

The stranger suddenly remembered something.  “I’m a good bit obliged to you, young man, whoever you are.  I guess I’d have been here all night if you hadn’t come along and heard me.  I was beginning to get chilly, too.  Is this a blizzard?”

“Yes, I guess it is,” Fred answered, shortly, “and it’s not improving any, so I guess we had better hurry on.”

It was much easier going with the wind, and at first the older man, helped along by Fred, made good progress.  Fred knew that every minute the drifts were growing higher and the road harder to keep.

The night grew colder and darker, and the storm seemed to thicken.

“Pretty hard going for an old man of sixty,” the stranger said, stopping to get his breath.  The storm seemed to choke him.

Soon he begged to be let rest, and when Fred tried to start him again he experienced some difficulty.  The cold was getting into his very bones, and was causing a fatal drowsiness.

Fred told him this and urged him to put forth his greatest efforts.  They were now but a mile from Fred’s house.  Every few minutes the light in the window glimmered through the storm, the only ray of light in the maze of whirling snow which so often thickened and darkened and blotted it out altogether.

When they were about half a mile from the house, the old man, without warning, dropped into the snow and begged Fred to go on without him.  He was all right, he declared, warm and comfortable, and wanted to rest.

“You’ll freeze to death!” Fred cried.  “That’s the beginning of it.”

“Feel very comfortable,” the old man mumbled.

Fred coaxed, reasoned, entreated, but all in vain.  He shook the old man, scolded, threatened, but all to no purpose.

There was only one thing to be done.

Fred threw off his own coat, which was a heavy one, and picked the old man up, though he was no light weight, and set off with him.

But the man objected to being carried, and, squirming vigorously, slipped out of Fred’s arms, and once more declared his intention of sleeping in the snow.

With his frozen mitten Fred dealt him a stinging blow on the cheek which made him yell with pain and surprise.

“Do what I tell you!” cried Fred.

The blow seemed to rouse him from his stupor, and he let Fred lead him onward through the storm.

When they arrived at Fred’s house he put the old man in a rocking-chair, first removing his snowy outer garments, and made sure that he had no frost-bites.  Then hastily lighting the fire, which had burned itself out, he made coffee and fried bacon.

When the old man had taken a cup of the coffee he began to take an interest in his surroundings.