She was shaken by a regular pulse of nervous sobbing.  But, driven by a sort of restlessness, she made herself coffee and forced some food down her contracted throat.  Then she put on her coat, took down Miss Blake’s six-shooter and cartridge belt, and saw, with a slight relaxing of the cramp about her heart, that there were four shots in the chamber.  Four shots and eight dogs, but—­at least—­she could save herself from that death!  She strapped the gun round her slim hips, filled her pockets with supplies—­a box of dried raisins, some hard bread, a cake of chocolate, some matches—­pulled her cap down over her ears, and took her snowshoes from the wall.  With closed eyes she put her arm out through the broken pane, and, after a short struggle, slipped the rusty bolt.  Then she went over to the door and, leaning against it, prayed.  Even with the mysterious strength she drew from that sense of kinship with a superhuman Power, it was a long time before she could force herself to open.  At last, with a big gasp, she flung the door wide, skirted the house, her hands against the logs, her eyes shut, ran across the open space, scrambled up the drift, tied on her snowshoes, and fled away under the snow-laden pines.  There moved in all the wilderness that day no more hunted and fearful a thing.

The fresh snow sunk a little under her webs, but she was a featherweight of girlhood, and made quicker and easier progress than would have been possible to any one else but a child.  And her fear gave her both strength and speed.  Sometimes she looked back over her shoulder; always she strained her ears for the pad of following feet.  It was a day of rainbows and of diamond spray, where the sun struck the shaken snow sifted from overweighted branches.  Sheila remembered well enough the route to the post-office.  It meant miles of weary plodding, but she thought that she could do it before night.  If not, she would travel by starlight and the wan reflection of the snow.  There was no darkness in these clear, keen nights.  She would not tell herself what gave her strength such impetus.  She thought resolutely of the post-office, of the old, friendly man, of his stove, of his chairs and his picture of the President, of his gun laid across two nails against his kitchen wall—­all this, not more than eighteen miles away!  And she thought of Hilliard, too; of his young strength and the bold young glitter of his eyes.

She stopped for a minute at noon to drink some water from Hidden Creek and to eat a bite or so of bread.  She was pulling on her gloves again when a distant baying first reached her ears.  She turned faint, seemed to stand in a mist; then, with her teeth set defiantly, she started again, faster and steadier, her body bent forward, her head turned back.  Before her now lay a great stretch of undulating, unbroken white.  At its farther edge the line of blue-black pines began again.  She strained her steps to reach this shelter.  The baying had been very faint