The horses 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 wind was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it was driving through a bluff close by.
A few minutes later Agatha 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.
“Turn the team,” he said.
Agatha obeyed, 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 whether it smashed my ankle, or whether I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It is badly hurt anyway.”
He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realized part of what he must have suffered. She knew that nobody pinned to the ground and helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little while.
“Oh,” she cried, “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 stopped 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 team 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. When her strength began to flag, every yard of the homeward journey was made with infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the horses, and again, blinded, breathless and dazed, she stumbled along beside them. She did not know how Hastings was faring, but she half-consciously recognized that if once she let the trace go the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze.
At last, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. The man told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached the house a short time previously and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings.