The Parma herald. (Parma, Idaho) 1903-1917, 1917-07-12
CHAPTER Xxx.
eambIlnn With neath

| sen the Lady, not because she wa.
| fresher, for she was not, but because
he believed she possessed of the three
horses the clearest instinct to bring
her through the fight for the lives that
were at stake. He did not deceive him
self with the idea he could do anything
to help the beast find a way to succor
that instinct rested wholly in the La,
dy's head, not in his. He only knew
that if she could not get back to help
he could not. His own part in the
effort was quite outside any aid TO the
Lady-it was no more than to reach
alive whatever aid she could find that
he might direct it TO where Nan and
her companion would endure few
hours longer the fury of the storm.
His own struggle for life, he real
lied, was with the wind-the roaring
wind that hurled its broadsides of fro
zen snow in monstrous waves across
the maddened sky, challenging every
living thing. II drove icy knives into
his face and ears, paralyzed in its
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 CROP
ing efforts as she turned head and tail
from the binding 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
unending blasts. He buffeted his legs
and arms to fight off the fatal cold. He
slipped more than once from his seat,
and with a hand on the pommel
tramped beside the horse to revive his
falling circulation, there would come
a time, he realized, when he could no
longer climb up again, but he STAYED
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-
being-until below his hips he
had no body answeTable to his com
mands, but only two insensible masses
Of lead that anchored him to the
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-
yealed in their brain cells, deserted his
the thought that he must
not freeze to death More than once
ne had hoped the insensate fury of the
blizzard might abate. The Lady had
Ong since ceased to try to face it
ike a stripped vessel before a hurri-
,ane, she was drifting under it. De
spain realized that his helpless legs
would not carry him farther. His
lands, freezing to the pommel, no
onger supported him. They finally /.
Tipped from it and he fell PROSTATE in .
he snow beside his horse. When he .
would cry out to her his frozen lips |
ould humble no words. 1t was the
ght no longer of a man against ma
ure, but only of an indomitable soul
gainst 4 cruel, hateful death. He
truggled to his feet only to fall again
lore heavily. He pulled himself up
his time by the stirrup strap, got his
ands and arms up to the pommeI, and
lung TO it for a few PAGES more. But
e fell at last, and could no longer rise
'om the ground. The storm swept IN
on.
The Lady, checked by the lines
raped on his arm, stopped. De
pain lay moment, then backed her
p a step, pulled her head down by
lie bride, claSped his wooden arms
'ound her neck, spoke to her. and,
fling her head, the mare dragged him
his feet ClumsiIy and helplessly
: loosened the tugs and the whifle-
ee, beat his hands together with idi-
ic effort, hooked the middle point
the whifTietree into the elbow of his t
fit arm, brought the forearm and {
md against his shoulder, and with I
e hitching strap dashed his forearm {
ID upper arm tightly together around l
e whiffletree. y
He drew the tugs stifIly over the i
ldy's back. Embossed the clnches of
e saddle, pushed it off the horse and. a
liking into the snow behind her,
,uck with his free arm at her feet. t
,lieved of the saddle, the Lady once d
IRE started, dragging slowly behind q
r through the snow a still breathing $
man being. Less than an hour be- c
e it had been man. 1t was hardly h
re now, as the Lady plodded on, L
IN an insensate log. But not even C,
lth could part it again from the q
rise TO which De Spain, alive, had \
stoned it. b.
The fearful pain from the tortured d,
,ket, the gradual swapping of strain
ligaments, the constant rupture of fl
,illaries and veins sustained his D
seriousness for a while. Then the hi
turing pain abated, the rough drag he
g shattered the bruised body less. SE
was as if the Lady and the storm hi
ether were making easier for the
WY dying man his last trail across be
desert. He still struggled to keep to
re, by sheer will power. Pickering bl
rks of consciousness, and to do so tn
centrated every thought on Nan. 1t DIR
poignant happiness TO summon lol
picture TO his fainting senses; he lai
w he should hold to life as long tn
he could think of her. Love, no
niger than death. welled in his yo