The Adair County news., 1922-05-23

roots OF the trees, ana reeling
through swimming world, he stag
gered on and on and on. And neither
his anger nor the thought of Kitty
could have kept his resolution through
that nightmare of pain. 1t was all Joe
now, the memory of Joe, his love for
him, and his resolve that his friends
remains should not be torn by the tim
ber-wolveS.
Joe had befriended him years be-
fore, when he had drifted, penniless.
into Winnipeg. JOe's faith had been
his own, and the secret of the Missati-
bi theirs.
| So the miles reeled off behind him,
while the wind increased and the snow
fell thicker along the way. At last the
trees opened, and the bleak shore of
Big Muskeg lay before him, a desert
of ice and snow, with the bluffs OppO-
site, and beyond them the trees once
more.
At once the fierce swirl of the gale
caught him, whistling like sirens, bOr-
ing into his face like white-hot
probes. The ice that fringed his
lashes blinded him and pulled them
from the lids when he tried to open
his eyes. He reeled on, clutching JOe's
body, and heard his own voice go
from him in shouts of despair. They
rolled across the snow, and the echoes
came in faint, mimicking answer from
J the distant cliffs.
Wilton retained sufficient conscious
ness, of his surroundings to make his
way along the shore toward the port
age He might have shortened his
route to McDonald's store a little by
risking a direct crossing; but the sur
face of muskeg is always dangerous,
even in midwinter, when the appar-
emily solid ice cOnceals sink-holes of
slush, which, mixed with peat and
OOze, does not CONCEAL firmly, and en-
traps the unwary traveller, quick
mud from which escape is next to i'm
possible.
The portage was firm ice, although
1t offered no foundation for a railroad
bed. 1t ran between two openings in
the low bluffs, and the store was Wis
ible from the farther shore.
The icy blasts pierced through Will
toms fur hood and mackinaw as if
they had been cotton. His feet seemed
like foreign bodies attached to his
legs, up which he could feel the numb
ness creeping by inches toward his
body. And when at last he reached
the portage he looked out with in
credulity toward the opposite shore,
seeing only a flickering line of
shadows through the slit between his
frozen eyellds.
ResOlutely clasping the frozen form
with his right arm, he stepped out
upon the surface. The wind, which
blew through the gap with hurricane
violence at almost all times, had
swept the ice as a broom might sweep
rink, in enormous circles, CLASSY and
firm, with 'vhirling snOw-piles round
them. Wilton could progress only by
inches, fighting the full blast Of the
gale, and seeing the line of his route
only in fractions of seconds.
He saw the bluffs in front of him,
and the opposite shore nearing. And
he fought furiously against the creep
ing numbness, knowing that each sec
Ond counted for victory. 1t was per-
haps a hundred feet farther He
opened his eyes an instant. Eighty now
seventy, peEha2si one last effort
to cross the portage. ~''"'-~,t77' --N---'
Fifty feet! With all of will and
consciousness that remained Wilton
set his face resolutely toward his
landing place, and strOde on into the
bank of snow piled up by the wind be-
meath the shelter of the bluffs. His
feet sank through the cracking sur
face, he struggled shOulder-deep to
win the last lap Of the way. And Of
a sudden the ice broke under him and
twenty-five feet from the shore, the
snare of Big Muskeg held him.
Instinctively he sought to gather
purchase from the sides of the sink
hole into which he had fallen. The
tourniquet-stick dragged through the
yielding snow, the elbow of the arm
that held Joe's body rested upon the
ice. One instant he buoyed himself
by this means over the peaty slush
that sucked at him beneath. Then,
with a last cry that sounded above the
roaring of the gale, he yielded. And,
clutching JOe's body to his own, VIII
ton went down.