Yet, when they came to the great level valley beyond the second range of hills, the biting gale appeared to greet them with a fury pent up for the purpose. Un.o.bstructed it swept across the desert of snow, flinging not only the shotlike particles from the sky, but also the loose, roving drift, as dry as salt, that lay four inches deep upon the solider snow that floored the plain. And such miles and miles of the frozen waste were there! The distant mountains looked like huge windrows of snow wearing away in the rush of the gale.

Confident still it was only a flurry, Jim rode on. The pup by now was trailing behind, his tail less high, his fuzzy coat beginning to fill with snow, his eyes so pelted that he sneezed to keep them clear.

The air was cold and piercing as it drove upon them. Jim felt his feet begin to ache in his hard, leather boots. Beneath his clothing the chill lay thinly against his body, save for the place where little Carson was strapped to his breast.

"It can't last," the man insisted. "Never yet saw a bl.u.s.terin' storm that didn't blow itself to nothin' in a hurry."

But a darkness was flung about them with the thicker snow that flew.

Indeed, the flakes were multiplying tremendously. The wind was becoming a hurricane. With a roar it rushed across the valley. The world of storm suddenly closed in upon them and narrowed down the visible circle of desolation. Like hurrying troops of incalculable units, the dots of frozen stuff went sweeping past in a blinding swarm.

The thing had become a blizzard. Jim halted his horse, convinced that wisdom prompted them to turn their backs upon the fury and flee again to Borealis, to await a calmer day for travelling. A fiercer buffeting of wind puffed from the west, fiercely toothed with shot of snow. As if in fear unnamable, a gaunt coyote suddenly appeared scurrying onward before the hail and snow, and was quickly gone.

The horse shied violently out of the road. The girth of the saddle was loosened. With a superhuman effort old Jim remained in his seat, but he knew he must tighten the cinch. Dismounting, he permitted the horse to face away from the gale. The pup came gladly to the shelter of the miner's boots and clambered stiffly up on his leg, for a word of companionship and comfort.

"All right," said Jim, giving him a pat on the head when the saddle was once more secure in its place; "but I reckon we'll turn back homeward, and I'll walk myself, for a spell, to warm me up. It may let up, and if it does we can head for Fremont again without much loss of time."

With the bridle-rein over his shoulder, he led the horse back the way they had come, his own head low on his breast, to avoid the particles of snow that searched him out persistently.

They had not plodded homeward far when the miner presently discovered they were floundering about in snow-covered brush. He quickly lifted his head to look about. He could see for a distance of less than twenty feet in any direction. Mountains, plain--the world of white--had disappeared in the blinding onrush of snow and wind. A chaos of driving particles comprised the universe. And by the token of the brush underfoot they had wandered from the road. There had been no attempt on the miner's part to follow any tracks they had left on their westward course, for the gale and drift had obliterated every sign, almost as soon as the horse's hoofs had ploughed them in the snow.

Believing that the narrow road across the desolation of the valley lay to the right, he forged ahead in that direction. Soon they came upon smoother walking, which he thought was an indication that the road they sought was underfoot. It was not. He plodded onward for fifteen minutes, however, before he knew he had made a mistake.

The storm was, if possible, more furious. The snow flew thicker; it stung more sharply, and seemed to come from every direction.

"We'll stand right here behind the horse till it quits," he said. "It can't keep up a lick like this."

But turning about, in an effort to face the animal away from the worst of the blizzard, he kicked a clump of sage brush arched fairly over by its burden of snow. Instantly a startled rabbit leaped from beneath the shrub and bounded against the horse's legs, and then away in the storm. In affright the horse jerked madly backward. The bridle was broken. It held for a second, then tore away from the animal's head and fell in a heap in the snow.

"Whoa, boy!--whoa!" said the miner, in a quiet way, but the horse, in his terror, snorted at the brush and galloped away, to be lost from sight on the instant.

For a moment the miner, with his bundled little burden in his arms, started in pursuit of the bronco. But even the animal's tracks in the snow were being already effaced by the sweep of the powdery gale. The utter futility of searching for anything was harshly thrust upon the miner's senses.

They were lost in that valley of snow, cold, and blizzard.

"We'll have to make a shelter the best we can," he said, "and wait here, maybe half an hour, till the storm has quit."

He kicked the snow from a cl.u.s.ter of sagebrush shrubs, and behind this flimsy barrier presently crouched, with the shivering pup, and with the silent little foundling in his arms.

What hours that merciless blizzard raged, no annals of Nevada tell.

What struggles the gray old miner made to find his way homeward before its wrath, what a fight it was he waged against the elements till night came on and the worst of the storm had ceased, could never be known in Borealis.

But early that night the teamster, Lufkins, was startled by the neighing of a horse, and when he came to the stable, there was the half-blinded animal on which old Jim and tiny Skeezucks had ridden away in the morning--the empty saddle still upon his back.

CHAPTER XXI

A BED IN THE SNOW

The great stout ore-wagons stood in the snow that lay on the Borealis street, with never a horse or a mule to keep them company. Not an animal fit to bear a man had been left in the camp. But the twenty men who rode far off in the white desolation out beyond were losing hope as they searched and searched in the drifts and mounds that lay so deep upon the earth.

By feeble lantern glows at first, and later by the cold, gray light of dawn, they scanned the road and the country for miles and miles. It was five o'clock, and six in the morning, and still the scattered company of men and horses pushed onward through the snow.

The quest became one of dread. They almost feared to find the little group. The wind had ceased to blow, but the air was cold. Gray ribbons of cloud were stretched across the sky. Desolation was everywhere--in the heavens, on the plain, on the distant mountains.

All the world was snow, dotted only where the mounted men made insignificant spots against the waste of white.

Aching with the cold, aching more in their hearts, the men from Borealis knew a hundred ways to fear the worst.

Then at last a shout, and a shot from a pistol, sped to the farthest limits of the line of searching riders and prodded every drop of sluggish blood within them to a swift activity.

The shout and signal had come from Webber, the blacksmith, riding a big, bay mare. Instantly Field, Bone, and Lufkins galloped to where he was swinging out of his saddle.

There in the snow, where at last he had floundered down after making an effort truly heroic to return to Borealis, lay the gray old Jim, with tiny Skeezucks strapped to his breast and hovered by his motionless arms. In his hands the little mite of a pilgrim held his furry doll.

On the snow lay the luncheon Miss Doc had so lovingly prepared. And Tintoretto, the pup, whom nature had made to be joyous and glad, was prostrate at the miner's feet, with flakes of white all blown through the hair of his coat. A narrow little track around the two he loved so well was beaten in the snow, where time after time the worried little animal had circled and circled about the silent forms, in some brave, puppy-wise service of watching and guarding, faithfully maintained till he could move no more.

For a moment after Bone and Lufkins joined him at the spot, the blacksmith stood looking at the half-buried three. The whole tale of struggle with the chill, of toiling onward through the heavy snow, of falling over hidden shrubs, of battling for their lives, was somehow revealed to the silent men by the haggard, death-white face of Jim.

"They can't--be dead," said the smith, in a broken voice.

"He--couldn't, and--us all--his friends."

But when he knelt and pushed away some of the snow, the others thought his heart had lost all hope.

It was Field, however, who thought to feel for a pulse. The eager searchers from farther away had come to the place. A dozen pair of eyes or more were focussed on the man as he held his breath and felt for a sign of life.

"Alive!--He's alive!" he cried, excitedly. "And little Skeezucks, too!

For G.o.d's sake, boys, let's get them back to camp!"

In a leap of gladness the men let out a mighty cheer. From every saddle a rolled-up blanket was swiftly cut, and rough but tender hands swept off the snow that clung to the forms of the miner, the child, and the pup.

CHAPTER XXII

CLEANING THEIR SLATE

Never could castle or mansion contain more of gladness and joy of the heart than was crowded into the modest little home of Miss Doc when at last the prayers and ministrations of a score of men and the one "decent" woman of the camp were rewarded by the Father all-pitiful.

"I'm goin' to bawl, and I'll lick any feller that calls me a baby!"

said the blacksmith, but he laughed and "bawled" together.

They had saved them all, but a mighty quiet Jim and a quieter little Skeezucks and a wholly subdued little pup lay helpless still in the care of the awkward squad of nurses.

And then a council of citizens got together at the dingy shop of Webber for a talk. "We mustn't fergit," said the smith, "that Jim was a takin' the poor little feller to Fremont 'cause he thought he was pinin' away fer children's company; and I guess Jim knowed. Now, the question is, what we goin' for to do? Little Skeezucks ain't a goin'

to be no livelier unless he gits that company--and maybe he'll up and die of loneliness, after all. Do you fellers think we'd ought to git up a party and take 'em all to Fremont, as soon as they're able to stand the trip?"

Bone, the bar-keep answered: "What's the matter with gittin' the preacher and his wife and three little gals to come back here and settle in Borealis? I'm goin' in for minin', after a while, myself, and I'll--and I'll give my saloon from eight to two on Sundays to be fixed all up fer a church; and I reckon we kin support Parson Stowe as slick as any town in all Navady."