The Mena weekly star., 1917-07-26

Nsi "i'" .'e Nlta ne could Gn anything l9 Ae'.' aa haa1t find way to succor. tHot Instinct rested wholly in tho I.a- avs head not in his. He only knew that if she could not get back to heln he could not. His own bart in inc effort was gTite outside any aid to the Lady-it was no more than to reoch alN" whatever aid she could find that he might direct if to where Nan and her companion would endure fev
 hours longer the fury of the storm.
 lis own struggle for life. he real
 lzed' was with the wind-the roaring
 Wind that hurled its broadsldes of fro zen snow in monstrous waves across lhe maddened sky, challenging every lVing thing. It drove icy knives into
 ms face and ears, paralyzed in it's sWift grasp his muscles and sinews, fought the stout flow of blood through his veins, and searched his very heart to still it.
 Encouraging the Lady with kind words and caressing her in her grop- Ing efforts as she turned head and tail rom the 5linding sheets of snow and Ice, De Spain let her drift, hoping she might bring them through, what he confessed in his heart to be, the mar rowest of chances.
 He bent low in his saddle under the amending blasts. He buffeted his legs and arms to fight off the fatal cold He silpped more than once from his seat, and with a hand on the pommel tramped beside the horse to revive his ialllng circulation, there would come a time, he realized, when he could no longer climb up again, but he staved that issue off to the last possible mo- ment of endurance, because the Lady made better time when he was on her back. When the struggle to remount had been repeated until nature could no longer by any staggering effort be made to respond to his will, until his legs were no longer a part of his be- numbed being-until below his hips he had no body answerable to his com mands, but only two insensible masses of lead that anchored him to the ground-he still forced the frozen feet to carry him, in a feeble, monstrous gait beside the Lady, while he dragged with his hands on the saddle for her patient aid.
 One by one every thought, as if con gealed in their brain cells. deserted his mind-saye the thought that he must not freeze to death. More than once he had hoped the insensate fury of the blizzard might abate. The Lady had long since ceased to try to face it- Ike stripped vessel before a hurri- cane, she was drifting under it. De Spain realized that his helpless legs would not carry him farther. His hands, freezing to the pommel, no longer supported him. They finally slipped from it and he fell prostrate in the snow beside his horse. When he would cry out to her his frozen lips could humble no words. It was the light no longer of man against na- ture, but only of an indomitable soul against a cruel, hateful death. He struggled to his feet only to fall again [ AlbAt ntdNtiys I1c Uulitu lllDiStIl uD this time by the stlrrup strap, got his hands and arms up to the pommel and clung to it for few paces more. But he fell at last, and could no longer rise from the ground. The storm swept un- ceasingly on.
 The Lady, checked by the lines wrapped on his arm, stopped. De Spain lay a moment, then backed her up a step, pulled her head down by the bridle. elasped his wooden arms around her neck. spoke to her, and, lifting her head, the mare dragged him to his feet. Clumsily and helplessly he loosened the tugs and the whiffie- tree, beat his hands together with idi- otic effort, hooked the middle point of the whiffletree into the elbow of his left arm, brought the forearm and hand against his shoulder and with the hitching strap leshed his forearm and upper arm tightly together around the whifIletree.
 He drew the tugs stiffiy over the Lady's back, unlOosed the cinches of the saddle, pushed it off the horse and, sinking into the snow behind her, struck with his free arm at her feet. Relieved of the saddle, the Lady once more started, dragging slowly behind her through the snow a still breathing human being. Less than an hour be- fore it had been man. It was hardly more now. as the Lady plodded on, than an insensate log. But not even death could part 1t again from the horse to which De Spain, alive, had fastened it.
 The fearful pain from the tortured arm, torn at times almost from it's socket, the gradual snapping of strain ing fragments, the constant rupture of capillaries and veins sustained his consciousness for a while. Then the torturing pain abated, the rough drag ging shattered the bruised body less. It was as if the Lady and the storm together were making easier for the slowly dying man his last trail across the desert. He still struggled to keep alive, by sheer will power, flickering sparks of consciousness. and to do so concentrated every thought on Nan. It was a poignant happiness to summon her picture to his fainting senses; he knew he should hold to life as long as he could think of her. Love, stronger than death, welled in his heart. The bitter cold and the merci-