IN THE TOILS OF THE BLIZZARD
Something was tugged and wrenched mighty hard as Jim rode finally
around the hill, and so out of sight of the meagre little camp he
called his home, but resolution was strong within him. Up and up
through the narrow canon, winding tortuously towards the summit, like
the trail of a most prodigious serpent channelled in the snow, the
horse slowly climbed, with Tintoretto, the joyous, busily visiting each
and every portion of the road, behind, before, and at the sides.
What a world of white it was! The wind had increased, and a few
scattered specks of snow that sped before it seemed trying to muster
the force of a storm, from the sky in which the sun was still shining,
between huge rents and spaces that separated scudding clouds.
It was not, however, until an hour had gone that the flakes began to
swirl in fitful flurries. By then the travellers were making better
time, and Jim was convinced the blotted sun would soon again assert its
mastery over clouds so abruptly accumulated in the sky. The wind,
however, had veered about. It came directly in their faces, causing
the horse to lower his head and the pup to sniff in displeasure.
Little Skeezucks, with his back to the slanting fire of small, hard
flakes, nestled in comfort on the big, protecting shoulder, where he
felt secure against all manner of attack.
For two more hours they rode ahead, while the snow came down somewhat
thicker.
"It can't last," old Jim said, cheerily, to the child and horse and
pup. "Just a blowout. Too fierce and sudden to hold."
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. Unobstructed 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 blusterin' 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 cluster 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.