“I ain’t ‘been’, I’m goin’. I’m goin’ with Mr. Brook. A man ain’t got no business out a night like this alone.”
“Bill!” It was all I could say—but he understood.
When Owen came out he tried to dissuade him, but Bill was determined.
“I know I don’t have to go, Mr. Brook, you never asked me, but I’m a goin’, there ain’t nothin’ can keep me.”
I had never seen him so serious, all the old half bantering tone was gone and they went out together, master and man, each risking his life for the sake of another.
I tried to watch them but instantly they were lost to my sight as a vague grey cloud closed about them.
How the night passed I do not know. I kept the fires up and the coffee hot and walked miles, back and forth, back and forth. I did not think of sleeping. It was useless to try to read. I could not see the words—the printed page was blank and I could only see the figures of two men on horseback, beaten, buffeted, fighting for their lives against the cruel snow-laden gale. I saw them separated, perhaps, trying to get through the gulches on their floundering horses, or walking to keep from freezing and then perhaps exhausted—lying down to rest while that last deadly sensation of sleepiness crept over them.
Daylight came at last, but still I walked. I pushed my breakfast away untasted and tried to occupy myself with the duties of the day. I felt as though I should scream aloud if that howling wind did not cease, but hour after hour passed and there was no other sound. The men came and went about their work quietly, speaking but little and then in subdued tones as in the presence of death; over us all hung the pall of terrifying uncertainty.
When occasionally it was possible to catch a glimpse of the corrals or the blacksmith shop I knew that the wind must be abating and time after time I knocked the snow from the windows and stood straining my eyes into that misty, vague out-of-doors. Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock. Something moved along the edge of the pond, the vague outlines of some animal, a slight lull in the wind and I could see that it was a horseman, another followed—I caught up a cape, flung open the door, dashed out into the storm through drifts, over every detaining obstacle until I reached the corral and—Owen.
They were safe, but so weary and worn they could scarcely speak. Their faces were swollen, having been whipped and lashed by the icy particles the wind had driven against them like bits of steel from a mighty blast furnace, their eyebrows and lashes were solid ice, their lips cracked and bleeding.