The Benson signal., 1917-11-10

her picture to his farming 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 mercf-
less wind were kinder as he called her
image from out of the storm. She
seemed to speak-to lift him on her
arms. Ahead, distant mountains rose,
White-peaked. The sun shone. He
rode with her through green fields, and
great peace rested on his weary
senses.
Lady Jane, pushing on and on, en-
lightened by that instinct before which
the reason of man is weak and pitiful,
seeing, as it were, through the i'm
penetrable curtain of the storm where
refuge lay, herself slow-mOving crust
of frozen snow, dragged to her jour-
ney's end-to the tight-shut doors of
the CalabasaS barn-her unconscious
burden, and stood before them patient
ly waiting until someone should open
for her. It was one of the heartbreaks
of tragic day that no one ever knew
just when the Lady reached the door
or how long she and her unconscious
master waited in the storm for admis-
sion. A startled exclamation from
John Lefever, who had periodically
and anxiously left the red-hot stove
in the Office to walk mOodily to the
window, brought the men tumbling
over one another as he ran from his
companions to throw open the outer
door and pull the dropping horse into
the barn.
1t was the Indian, Scott, who, read
ing first of all the men everything in
the dread story, sprang forward with
stif1ed exclamation, as the horse
dragged in the snow-covered log,
whipped a knife from his pocket, cut
the incumbered arm and white hand
free from the whiffletree, and, carry
| ing the stiffened body into the office,
began with insane haste to cut away
the clothing.
Lefever, perceiving it was De Spain
thus drawn to their feet, shouted,
while he tore from the blade of Scott's
knife the frozen garments, the orders
for the snow, the heated water, the
warm blankets, the alcohol and BRAN
dy, and, stripped to his waist, chafed
the marble feet. The Indian, better
than a staff of doctors, used the cum
ming of a sOrcerer to revive the spark
Of inanimate life not yet extinguished
| by the storm. A fearful interval of
suspense followed the silence into
which the work settled, a silence bro
ken only by the footsteps of men run
ming to and from the couch over which
Scott, Lefever and McAlpin, half
naked, worked in mad concert.
De Spain opened his eyes to wander
from one to the other of the faces. He
half rose up, struggling in a frenzy
with the hands that restrained him.
While his companions pleaded to quiet
him, he fought them until, restored
ed itself, and, lying exhausted, he told
them in his exquisite torture Of whom
he had left, and what must be done
to find and bring them in.
| While the relief wagons, equipped
with straining teams and f1anked by
veteran horsemen, were dashing out
of the barn, he lapsed into uncon-
sciousness. But he had been able to
hold Scott's hand long enough to tell
him he must find Nan and bring her
In, or never come back.
It was Scott who found her. In their
groupings through the blizzard the three
had wandered nearer Calabasas than
any one of them dreamed. And on the
upper lava beds, it was Scott's horse
that put foot through the bottom of
the overturned wagon box. The sus-
pected mound of SLOW, with the buried
horses scramblinE to their feet, rose
upright at the crash. Duke crOuched,
half-consciOus, under the rude shelter
Lying where he had placed her, snugly
between the horses, Scott found Man.
He spoke to her when she opened her
staring eyes, picked her up in his
arms, called to his companions for the
covered wagon, and began to restore
her, without a moment of delay, to
life. He even promised if she would
drink the hateful draft he put to her
lips and let him cut away her shoes
and leggings and the big coat frozen
on her, that in less than an hour she
should see Henry de Spain alive and
well.
| CAAPTER XXXI