His eyes ranged over the dim outline of Wade stretched across the saddle, powdered with snow, rested an instant upon Carroll who had sunk back upon the ground, nursing his injured limb, and then sought the face of Wasson.

“What the hell can we do?”

“Go on; thet’s all of it; go on till we drop, lad.  Come, ‘Brick,’ my boy,” and the scout gripped the Sergeant’s shoulder, “you ’re not the kind to lie down.  We ’ve been in worse boxes than this and pulled out.  It ’s up to you and me to make good.  Let’s crunch some hard-tack and go on, afore the whole three of us freeze stiff.”

The Sergeant thrust out his hand.

“That isn’t what’s taken the nerve out of me, Sam,” he said soberly.  “It’s thinking of the girl out in all this with those devils.”

“Likely as not she ain’t,” returned the other, tramping the snow under his feet.  “I ‘ve been thinkin’ ’bout thet too.  Thet outfit must hev had six hours the start o’ us, didn’t they?”

Hamlin nodded.

“Well, then, they could n’t a ben far from the Cimarron when the storm come.  They ’d be safe enough under the bluffs; have wood fer a fire, and lay thar mighty comfortable.  That’s whar them bucks are, all right.  Why, damn it, man, we ’ve got to get through.  ’T ain’t just our fool lives that’s at stake.  Brace up!”

“How far have we come?”

“A good ten miles, an’ the compass has kep’ us straight.”

They drew in closer together, and munched a hard cracker apiece, occasionally exchanging a muttered word or two, thrashing their limbs about to keep up circulation, and dampening their lips with snow.  They were but dim, spectral shapes in the darkness, the air filled with crystal pellets, swept about by a merciless wind, the horses standing tails to the storm and heads drooping.  In spite of the light refraction of the snow the eyes could scarcely see two yards away through the smother.  Above, about, the ceaseless wind howled, its icy breath chilling to the bone.  Carroll clambered stiffly into his saddle, crying and swearing from weakness and pain.  The others, stumbling about in the deep snow, which had drifted around them during the brief halt, stripped the blanket from Wade’s dead body, and tucked it in about Carroll as best they could.

“Now keep kicking and thrashing around, George,” ordered the Sergeant sternly.  “For God’s sake, don’t go to sleep, or you ’ll be where Jim is.  We ’ll haul you out of this, old man.  Sam, you take the rear, and hit Carroll a whack every few minutes; I’ll break trail.  Forward! now.”

They plunged into it, ploughing a way through the drifts, the reluctant horses dragging back at first, and drifting before the fierce sweep of the wind, in spite of every effort at guidance.  It was an awful journey, every step torture, but Hamlin bent to it, clinging grimly to the bit of his animal, his other arm protecting his eyes from the sting of the wind.  Behind, Wasson wielded a quirt, careless whether its lash struck the horse’s flank or Carroll.  And across a thousand miles of snow-covered plain, the storm howled down upon them in redoubled fury, blinding their eyes, making them stagger helplessly before its blasts.