For another hour Martin tugged at the rope, with bent head, and feet shuffling the snow-shoes through the newly-fallen snow. At last Tim cried aloud, saying that he was freezing. Then Martin paused, stripped off his own jacket, and wrapped it around the sufferer's body. He then carefully replaced the blankets which he had removed, and once again took up his weary task.
The wind now pierced him cruelly, and chilled him to the bone. His hands became numb, although he pounded them together in an effort to keep the blood in circulation. At times his brain reeled, and he felt that he could go no farther. But each time he thought of Nance. How could she get along without him? he asked himself. Beryl, too, came to his mind. She seemed to come to him through the storm, and he saw her, not at the hospital, but as he used to see her in the happy days of old. The sight of her had always inspired him then, as it did now in his fight with death. He must not give up, he said to himself. Anyway, if he was to die, it should be with his face to the front, and shoulders to his task. Then if Beryl should ever learn of the struggle he had made, it might do something to atone for the past. She might not think of him so bitterly, as no doubt she had done ever since his fall.
And still the storm continued to wrap around him its cold winding-sheet, entangling his feet, and endeavouring to win him for a victim. Martin was a stern antagonist, however, and fought off his relentless foe with the courage of desperation. He would fight; he would win; he would not give up. But slower and slower now he moved; fiercer and fiercer roared the tempest about him. Peculiar noises sounded in his ears, and weird voices of demons mocked at his futile efforts to stand upright, and to press forward. He saw them leering before him, reaching out their horrible hands to clutch him. Then his brain reeled, a fearful blackness shrouded his eyes, and with a despairing cry he fell forward full length upon the snow.
CHAPTER XXX
REVELATION
The new mission room proved a great boon to the miners at Quaska. When it was first opened very few visited the place, and the missionary felt somewhat discouraged. But Tom told him not to worry, as they would be sure to come later.
"Jist wait, pard," he said, "until the nights git long an' cold, then ye'll see 'em come, an' mighty glad they'll be to have a spot to drop into instid of sittin' in their lonely shacks."
"But perhaps they'll go to the saloons instead," Dick replied. "Won't they feel more at home there?"
"Not a bit of it. Some will go, to be sure. But all can't go, an' all won't want to go. Jist ye wait, an' see."