The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1893-04-27

sky, az rather the atmospheric cone
within which his sight was limited.
seemed to darken and close in on him.
AT one point just over his right shoulder
and apparently stones throw distant
in the air, there was black knot about
the size Of cannon-ball. 1t looked as
if it were spinning around and whirling
darkness and confusion far in all. direc-
tions.
"God save mel" gasped Stills. "I do
see blizzard nowi'
Stills was not his real name. 1 don't
think ever heard his real name, but it
doesn't signify, anyhow. Everybody
called him Stills on account of his ab-
normally long and thin legs. He was
tall, but his body was not we'll proper
toned. The most of it was legs, and
long as they were they lacked weight
and muscle. 1t came like flash into
Stilts's mind that if ne ever let that
twirling black knot strike him it would
carry him so far and turn him over so
often that even if he got away from it
alive he would have lost his bearings
completely and would have no notion
whatever as to the direction in which to
walk. All the stories he had heard or
read about people getting lost in the
snow came surging upon him. He re-
membered one case where man started
out in blizzard to close his barn door,
and perished in vain effort to find it.
Another, where man aud his young
daughter left church building in
which, with others, the blizzard caught
them, thinking they could surely reach
their home on the other side of the
street and only a few doors below the
church. They were found dead in the
snow not ten feet from the fence that
inclosed their house. Stills threw him
self on his stomach, fiattened out and
dug his fingers and toes into the ground
fercely.
He did the right thing and did it not
a moment too soon. The noise which
had directed his attention to the black
knot had become startling thunder,
wild aurries Of snow darted and spread,
and in another instant the blizzard
broke Ten million demons surcharged
with fury could uot have made wilder
uproal, or produced more fearful force.
The luckiest thing that ever happened to
Stills in all his life was his thinness at
that moment. He held himself down in
the cured grass and trembled. Stiff as
he was with cold, the pefspiration oil
fear wet his face. How long he lay he
did not know, but he knew the snow
was heavy on him and he began to be
afraid OF losing consciousness. The
widest passion of the storm had passed
of that he felt certain. But it still
ragged and roared. The snow fell in lit,
tie flakes that struck his face like whip
snaps. He could not see foot in front
of his eyes. He was afraid, indeed, to
open them, and ventured to do so only
for second now and then. He rose
slowly, testing his strength against the
storm with every movement until at last
he stood upright with his face set, ne
was sure, directly towards his little
shack, one. third of mile away.
Stills had heard about the tendency
of man in walking, without visible
marks to guide him, to move in a circle,
and he argued that there was danger OF
his missing the shack while being very
near it. AS the thing had been ex-
planned to him, the muscles OF the right
leg being stronger and more vigor-
GUS generally than those Of the
left, it was circular move
ment toward the lett. He concluded,
therefore, to strike out for point to the
right, or north of his shack. The wind
had also to be taken into account. Its
natural effect would be to throw him to-
ward the left. Considering these facts,
he began to move as swiftly as he dared,
having due regard to the necessity OF
controlling the direction OF every step.
But it was not really swift. The wind
caught him, almost turned him and still
ened every muscle. The cold was un-
thinkable. The biting, whipping snow
seemed to raise blister on every point
of surface it struck. He could not turn
from it lest he changed his route. lie
went forward dozen steps, beating
against the wind, and then paused IN ex-
nduSGlOu-d dOASh hANt~
again. He asked himself thousand
times. Would he never reach the couiee'
even9 Again and again he was sure ne
had lost it, sure he was going any otner
than the right way. But as last ne
thought he felt his footsteps descend
ing, and now he was sure OF it. down.
down, down he went, slowly but nrmiy'
the force of the storm growing less WIN
every step. He was at the bottom Oh the
couleel
Stills had been thinking all KINDS OF
things since he saw that black knot, ana
the thought which passed on him nara'
est was that his time had probably come,
His mind was choked with memories OIL
his boyhood in Kentucky, OF ms mocher'
who was as good woman as ever
moaned life into the world, aud as ne
stopped for breath in the coulee' VIII,
the blizzard bowling above him. ne tr.eu
to recall tae prayers she had taught nim'
but to save his soul he couldn't Nc io
membered the long meter Doxoiogy' ou'