“I know you now,” she shouted.  “It’s Teunis!” I nodded; and she squeezed my arm with her two hands.  Give up!  Not for all the winds and snows of the whole of the Iowa prairie!  I disarranged the robes while I put my arm around her for a moment; while she patted my shoulder.  Then, putting tendernesses aside, when they must be indulged in at the expense of snow in the sleigh, I put my horses into it again.  A few minutes ago, I gave you the thoughts that ran through my mind as I conjured up the image of one lost in such a storm; but now I thought of nothing—­only for a few minutes after that pressure on my arm—­but getting on from moment to moment, keeping my sleigh from upsetting, encouraging those brave mares, and peering around for anything that might promise shelter.  Virginia has always told of this to the children, when I was not present, to prove that I am brave, even if I am mortal slow; and if just facing danger from minute to minute without looking further, is bravery, I suppose I am—­and there is plenty of good courage in the world which is nothing more, look at it how you will.

So far, the cutter and team of which I had robbed Buck Gowdy, had been a benefit to us.  They gave us transportation, and the warm sleigh in which to nest down.  I began to wonder, now, as it began to grow dark, as the tempest greatened, as my horses disappeared in the smother, and as the frost began to penetrate to our bodies, whether I should not have done better to have stayed in the schoolhouse, and burned up the partitions for fuel; but the thought came too late; though it troubled me much.  Two or three times, one of the mares fell in the drifts, and nothing but the courage bred into them in the blue-grass fields of Kentucky saved us from stalling out in that fearful moving flood of wind and frost and snow.  Two or three times we narrowly escaped being thrown out into it by the overturn of the sleigh; and then I foresaw a struggle, in which there would be no hope; for in a storm in which a strong man is helpless, how could he expect to come out safe with a weak girl on his hands?

At last, the inevitable happened:  the off mare dove into a great drift; the nigh one pulled on:  and they came to a staggering halt, one of them was kept from falling partly by her own efforts, and partly by the snow about her legs against which she braced herself.  As they stood there, they turned their heads and looked back as if to say that so far as they were concerned, the fight was over.  They had done all they could.

I sat a moment thinking.  I looked about, and saw, between gusts, that we were almost against a huge straw-pile, where some neighbor had threshed a setting of wheat.  This might mean that we were close to a house, or it might not.  I handed the lines to Virginia under the robes, got out, and struggled forward to look at my team.  Their bloodshot eyes and quivering flanks told me that they could help us no longer; so I unhitched them, so as to keep the