Hawtrey's Deputy

by Harold Bindloss

He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door.

The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team had come home alone.

It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings.

The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow.

That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No great weight of snow had fallen as yet.

Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful cold—the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie.

Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and then she could find no trace of it for several minutes.

The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it was driving through a bluff close by.

A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to look up at her.