Kennicott’s storm had not come.  When they set out it was hazy and growing warmer.  After a mile she saw that he was studying a dark cloud in the north.  He urged the horses to the run.  But she forgot his unusual haste in wonder at the tragic landscape.  The pale snow, the prickles of old stubble, and the clumps of ragged brush faded into a gray obscurity.  Under the hillocks were cold shadows.  The willows about a farmhouse were agitated by the rising wind, and the patches of bare wood where the bark had peeled away were white as the flesh of a leper.  The snowy slews were of a harsh flatness.  The whole land was cruel, and a climbing cloud of slate-edged blackness dominated the sky.

“Guess we’re about in for a blizzard,” speculated Kennicott “We can make Ben McGonegal’s, anyway.”

“Blizzard?  Really?  Why——­But still we used to think they were fun when I was a girl.  Daddy had to stay home from court, and we’d stand at the window and watch the snow.”

“Not much fun on the prairie.  Get lost.  Freeze to death.  Take no chances.”  He chirruped at the horses.  They were flying now, the carriage rocking on the hard ruts.

The whole air suddenly crystallized into large damp flakes.  The horses and the buffalo robe were covered with snow; her face was wet; the thin butt of the whip held a white ridge.  The air became colder.  The snowflakes were harder; they shot in level lines, clawing at her face.

She could not see a hundred feet ahead.

Kennicott was stern.  He bent forward, the reins firm in his coonskin gauntlets.  She was certain that he would get through.  He always got through things.

Save for his presence, the world and all normal living disappeared.  They were lost in the boiling snow.  He leaned close to bawl, “Letting the horses have their heads.  They’ll get us home.”

With a terrifying bump they were off the road, slanting with two wheels in the ditch, but instantly they were jerked back as the horses fled on.  She gasped.  She tried to, and did not, feel brave as she pulled the woolen robe up about her chin.

They were passing something like a dark wall on the right.  “I know that barn!” he yelped.  He pulled at the reins.  Peeping from the covers she saw his teeth pinch his lower lip, saw him scowl as he slackened and sawed and jerked sharply again at the racing horses.

They stopped.

“Farmhouse there.  Put robe around you and come on,” he cried.

It was like diving into icy water to climb out of the carriage, but on the ground she smiled at him, her face little and childish and pink above the buffalo robe over her shoulders.  In a swirl of flakes which scratched at their eyes like a maniac darkness, he unbuckled the harness.  He turned and plodded back, a ponderous furry figure, holding the horses’ bridles, Carol’s hand dragging at his sleeve.

They came to the cloudy bulk of a barn whose outer wall was directly upon the road.  Feeling along it, he found a gate, led them into a yard, into the barn.  The interior was warm.  It stunned them with its languid quiet.