"It shambled forward in a curious manner."
"Turn the team," he said.
Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again.
"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way."
He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little while.
"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!"
"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk—keep warm—but don't try to lead the team."
Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze.
At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out again.