The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-04-25

| turbed~ by the stiffness and the phII
of her body. When she awakened fol
the third time it was morning.
It seemed TO her that the hard, whip
sawed planks were pushing through
the soft flesh to the bones. She wa:
cold. too, and crept closer 70 the stout
Swedish woman lying beside her. Pres
emily she fell asleep again to the
sound of the blizzard bowling outside
When she wakened for the third time
it was morning.
In the afternoon the blizzard die6
away. AS far as the eye could see
| Sheba looked out upon a waste OF
snow. Her eyes turned from the desc
| latiOn without to the bare and cheer
/ less room in which they had found
| shelter. In spite of herself a little
shiver ran down the spine of the girl
Had she come into this Arctic soil
! tude to find her tomb?
AS soon as the storm had moderated
enough to let him go out with safety
| saltwater Pete had taken one of the
! horses for an attempt at trail break.
| ing.
''Me, I'm after that plum pudding
I gotta get a feed of oats from the
! stage for my bronchs too. The scenery
here is sure fine, but it amt what
you would call nourishfng. Huh
Watch our smoke when me and old
Baldface git to bucking them drifts
He had been gone two hours and the
| dusk was already descending over the
white waste when Sheba ventured out
to see what had become of the stage
! driver. But the cold was so bitter
that she soon gave up the attempt to
night her way through the drifts and
turned back to the cabin.
Some time later saltwater Pete
came stumbling into their temporary
home. He was tagged to exhaustion
but triumphant. Upon the table he
dropped from the crook of his numbed
arm two packages.
The markings for a Christmas din
ner," he said with a grin
Mrs. Olson thawed out the pudding
and the chocolates in the oven and
made a kind of mush out of some
oats Pete had saved from the horse
feed. They ate their one-sided meal
in high spirits. The freeze had saved
their lives. If it held clear till to-
morrow they could reach Smiths
crossing on the crust of the snow.
saltwater broke up the chairs fol
| fuel and demolished the legs of the
table, after which he lay down before
the stove and fell at once into a sod.
den sleep.
Presently Mrs. Olson lay down on
the bed and began to snore regularly
Sheba could not slese. Tie boards
| tired her bones and she was cold
Sometimes she slipped into cat maps
| that were full of bad dreams. When
she wakened with a start 1t was to find
that the fire had died down. She was
shivering from lack OF cover. Qui.
city the girl replenished the fire and
lay down again.
When she wakened with a start IL
was morning. A faint light sifted
through the single window of the
shack. Sheba whispered to the older
woman that she was going out for a
little walk
AS she worked her way down the
gulch Sheba wondered whether the
news of their loss had reached Ku-
siak. Were search parties out already
to rescue them? Colby Macdonald
had gone into the blizzard years ago to
save her father. Perhaps he might
have been out all night trying to save
her fathers daughter. Peter would go,
of cOurse-and Gordon Elliot. The
work In the mines would stop and
men would volunteer by scores. That
was one fine thing about the North.
It responded to the unwritten law
that man must risk his own life to
save others.
From a little knoll Sheba looked
down upon the top OF the stage three
hundred yards below her, and while
she stood there the promise of the
new day was blazoned on the sky. 1t
came with amazing beauty of green
and primrose and amethyst, while the
stars fickered out and the heavens
took on the blue of sunrise. She drew
deep, slow breath of alteration and
turned away. As she did so her eyes
dilated and her body grew rigid.
Across the snow waste a man was
coming. He was moving toward the
cabin and. must cross the trench close
to her. The heart of the girl stopped,
then beat wildly to make up the lost
stroke. He had come through the biz
zard to save her.
At that very instant, as if the stage
had been set for it, the wonderful
Alaska sun pushed up into the crotch
of the peaks and poured its radiance
over the Arctic waste. The pink glow
swept in tide of delicate color over
the snow. and transmitted it to mil
lions of sparkling diamonds. The
Great Magician's wand had recreated
the world instantaneously.
CHAPTER XXI.