Harding of Allenwood Part 10

With the help of men from the railroad settlement Harding finished his house and made it weather-proof before the frost struck deep into the soil. Plowing was now impossible, but there was much to be done. The inside of the dwelling had to be fitted up, and logs were needed for the stables he must build in the spring. Trees large enough for the purpose were scarce; and where coal is un.o.btainable, cutting wood for fuel keeps the settler busy during the rigorous winter. Harding might have simplified his task by buying sawed lumber, but the long railroad haulage made it expensive, and he never shrank from labor which led to economy. He was not a n.i.g.g.ard, but he had ambitions and he saw that his money must be made productive if those ambitions were to be gratified.

He was coming home one evening with Devine, bringing a load of wood on his jumper-sled. It had been a bitter day, and the cold got keener as a leaden haze crept up across the plain. There was still a curious gray light, and objects in the immediate foreground stood out with harsh distinctness. The naked branches of the poplars on the edge of the ravine they skirted cut sharply against the sky, and the trail, which ran straight across the thin snow, was marked by a streak of dingy blue.

The wind was fitful, but when it gathered strength the men bent their heads and s.h.i.+vered in their old deerskin jackets.

As the oxen plodded on, Devine looked round at the sled rather anxiously.

"Hadn't you better throw some of these logs off, Craig?" he suggested.

"It's a heavy load, and I'm afraid there's a blizzard working up. We want to get home before it breaks."

"The oxen can haul them," Harding replied. "We'll get nothing done for the next few days, and we have our hands plumb full this winter."

"I used to think I was a bit of a hustler," Devine said, "but you sure have me beat."

"If I'm not mistaken, we'll get a lie-off to-morrow." Harding struck one of the oxen with his mittened hand. "Pull out, Bright, before you freeze!"

The big animals moved faster, and the tired men plodded on silently.

There is no easy road to wealth on the wheatlands of the West; indeed, it is only by patient labor and stoic endurance that a competence can be attained. Devine and his comrade knew this by stern experience, and, half frozen as they were, they braced themselves for the effort of reaching home. They must adapt their pace to the oxen's, and it was not quick enough to keep them warm.

As they approached a bluff, Harding looked up.

"Somebody riding pretty fast!" he said.

A beat of hoofs, partly m.u.f.fled by the snow, came down the bitter wind, and a few moments later a horseman appeared from behind the trees. He was indistinct in the gathering gloom, but seemed to be riding furiously, and Harding drew the oxen out of the trail.

"One of the Allenwood boys. Young Mowbray, isn't it?" said Devine.

The next moment Lance Mowbray dashed past them, scattering the snow. The horse was going at a frantic gallop, the rider's fur coat had blown open, his arms were tense, and his hands clenched on the bridle. His face was set, and he gazed fixedly ahead as if he did not see the men and the sledge.

"It's that wild brute of a range horse," Harding remarked. "Nearly bucked the boy off the last time he pa.s.sed my place. Something in the bluff must have scared him; he has the bit in his teeth."

"Looks like it," Devine agreed. "Young Mowbray can ride, but I'm expecting trouble when he makes the timber."

They turned and stopped to watch, for the Allenwood trail ran down the side of the ravine among the trees not far away. Horse and rider rapidly grew indistinct and vanished over the edge of the hollow. Then there was a dull thud and the beat of hoofs suddenly broke off. The deep silence that followed was ominous.

"Throw the load off, and bring the oxen!" cried Harding as he started to run along the trail.

He was breathless when he reached the edge of the declivity; but he saw nothing when he looked down. A blurred network of trunks and branches rose from the shadowy depths with a pale glimmer of snow beneath; that was all, and there was no sound except the wail of the rising wind.

Plunging straight down through the timber, Harding made for a bend of the trail where there was a precipitous bank, and on reaching it he saw a big, dark object lying in the snow some distance beneath him. This was the horse; its rider could not be far away. When he scrambled down he found the boy lying limp and still, his fur cap fallen off and his coat torn away from his body. His face looked very white, his eyes were closed, and he did not answer when Harding spoke. Kneeling down, he saw that the lad was alive but unconscious. Nothing could be done until Devine arrived.

It was a relief when he heard the oxen stumbling through the brush.

Presently Devine came running up, and after a glance at the boy turned and felt the horse.

"Stone dead! What's the matter with Mowbray?"

"Some ribs broken, I suspect," said Harding. "Bring the sled close up.

We've got to take him home."

They laid Lance on the jumper, and Harding stripped off his own skin coat and wrapped it round the boy.

"The shock's perhaps the worst thing, and he feels cold."

Both had had some experience of accidents in a country where surgical a.s.sistance could seldom be obtained, and Devine nodded agreement.

"Guess we'll have trouble in hauling up the grade and getting to Allenwood before the blizzard, but we've got to make it."

The opposite slope was rough and steep, and the jumper too wide to pa.s.s easily between the trees. They had to lift it, and help the oxen here and there; but they struggled up and then found that their difficulties were not over when they reached the open plain. The wind had risen while they were in the hollow and was now blowing the dry snow about. It had grown dark and the trail was faint.

"Might be wiser to take him to your homestead," Devine suggested; "but they'll be able to look after him better at the Grange. Get a move on the beasts, Craig; we've no time to lose."

Harding urged the oxen, which stepped out briskly with their lighter load, but he had some difficulty in guiding them, though Devine went ahead to keep the trail. It was impossible to see any distance, and there was no landmark on the bare white level; the savage wind buffeted their smarting faces and filled their eyes with snow. The cold struck through Harding's unprotected body like a knife, but he went on stubbornly, keeping his eyes on Devine's half-distinguishable figure. He was sorry for the unconscious youngster, but he did not glance at him.

This was a time when pity was best expressed in action.

They had gone about two miles when the blizzard broke upon them in a blinding cloud of snow and the cold suddenly increased. Though he wore a thick jacket, Harding felt as if his flesh had changed to ice; his hands were numb, and his feet seemed dead. He knew the risk he ran of being crippled by frostbite; but to take his coat back might cost Lance his life.

They had been struggling forward for a long time when Devine stopped and came back.

"We've been off the trail for the last ten minutes," he said. "Guess it's got snowed up."

It was a bald statement of an alarming situation. Their only guide had failed them, and unless they could soon find shelter all must perish. It might, perhaps, be possible to keep moving for another hour or two, and then they would sink down, exhausted, to freeze. Yet, having faced similar perils and escaped, they were not utterly dismayed.

"The long rise can't be very far off," Harding said hopefully. "If we could make it, there's a little coulee running down the other side. Then we ought to see the Grange lights when we strike the lake."

His voice was scarcely audible through the roar of the icy gale, but Devine caught a word or two and understood.

"Then," he shouted back, "you want to keep the wind on your left cheek!"

It was the only guide to the direction of the blast, for the snow whirled about them every way at once, and sight was useless amid the blinding haze. Feeling, however, to some extent remained, and although their faces were freezing into dangerous insensibility, so long as they kept their course one side was still a little more painful than the other. They struggled on, urging the jaded oxen, and dragging them by their heads where the drifts were deep. The snow seemed to thicken as they went. They could not see each other a yard or two apart, and the power that kept them on their feet was dying out of them. Both had been working hard since sunrise, and weary flesh and blood cannot long endure a furious wind when the thermometer falls to forty or fifty below.

Nothing broke the surface of the plain except the blowing waves of snow that swirled across their course and beat into their faces. It seemed impossible that they could keep on. Hope had almost left them when Devine suddenly called out:

"It's surely rising ground!"

Harding imagined by the oxen's slower pace, and his own labored breathing, that his comrade was right, but the rise was gradual and extensive. They might wander across it without coming near the lake; but they could take no precautions and much must be left to chance.

"Get on!" he said curtly.

By the force of the wind which presently met them he thought they had reached the summit. Somewhere near them a watercourse started and ran down to the lake; but the men could not tell which way to turn, although they knew that the decision would be momentous. One way led to shelter, the other to death in the snowy wilds.

"Left and down!" Harding cried at a venture.

They trudged on, Devine a few paces in front picking out the trail, and Harding urging forward the snow-blinded oxen. They had not gone more than a few yards when Devine suddenly disappeared. There was a rush of loosened snow apparently falling into a hollow, and then his voice rose, hoa.r.s.e but exultant.

"We've struck the coulee!"

He scrambled out and it was comparatively easy to follow the ravine downhill; and soon after they left it the surface grew unusually level, and no tufts of withered gra.s.s broke the snow.

"Looks like the lake," said Devine. "We'll be safe once we hit the other side."

Harding was nearly frozen, and he began to despair of ever reaching the Grange; but he roused himself from the lethargy into which he was sinking when a faint yellow glimmer shone through the swirling snow. It grew brighter, more lights appeared, and they toiled up to the front of a building. With some trouble Devine found the door and knocked.