“Business.  My own!”

“There’s two kinds of business out here this time of year.  Tain’t healthy for either of them.”  Dan’s words were measured and clipped.  “You’ve damned the West and all that’s in it good and plenty.  Now I say, damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won’t pay their debts from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded and die fighting; that won’t risk—­”

A grey film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not the coming of twilight.  Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot.  The shriek of the runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness.

“Hillas,” Dan’s voice came sharply, “stand up and look for the light on Clark’s guide-pole about a mile to the right.  God help us if it ain’t burning.”

Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the blinding needles.  “I don’t see it, Dan.  We can’t be more than a mile away.  Hadn’t you better break toward it?”

“Got to keep the track ’til we—­see—­light!”

The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing fury.  The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow, but Dan’s lash whistled forward in reminding authority.  There was a moment’s lull.

“See it, Hillas?”

“No, Dan.”

Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like captive mice.  The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched, backed, tangled.  Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal above the storm.

Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact.  As it came Hillas shouted, “I see it—­there, Dan!  It’s a red light.  She’s in trouble.”

Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan’s cries and the struggling horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts.  Again the leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice and bunched against the wheel-horses.  Dan swore, prayed, mastered them with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down.  Dan felt behind him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm.

“I’ll get him up—­or cut leaders—­loose!  If I don’t—­come back—­drive to light. Don’t—­get—­out!”

Dan disappeared in the white fury.  There were sounds of a struggle; the sled jerked sharply and stood still.  Slowly it strained forward.

Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they travelled a team’s length ahead.  He gave a cry—­“Dan!  Dan!” and gripped a furry bulk that lumbered up out of the drift.

“All—­right—­son.”  Dan reached for the reins.

Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light, staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last.  They stopped abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between themselves and insatiable fury.