They rode on with lowered heads, fine snow stinging their faces now and then, and though its touch was inexpressibly painful they were glad they retained the power of feeling. When that went, more serious trouble would begin. For a while a half moon shone down, and their black shadows sped on before them across the glittering plain, but by and by clouds drove up and the prairie grew dim. It changed to a stretch of soft grayish-blue, with the trail they followed running across it a narrow stretch of darker color. The light, however, was not wholly obscured; they could see a bluff stand out, a bank of shadow, a mile away. Once they saw the cheerful lights of a farm in the distance and a longing for warmth and the company of their fellow-creatures seized them, but this was a desire that must be subdued, and, leaving the beaten trail they pressed on into the waste. Save for the faint, doleful sound the wind made it was dauntingly silent and desolate. There was not a bush to break its gray surface, and the frost was intense. They bore it uncomplainingly for an hour or two, and then Stanton broke out:
“I’ll have to get down or I’ll lose my foot! I’ll run a while beside my horse and then catch you up.”
Curtis nodded and trotted on, breasting the wind which, so far as he could judge from his sensations, was turning him into ice. He could hear Stanton behind him, but that was the only sound of life in the vast desolation. After a while the trooper came up at a gallop, and Curtis called to him sharply:
“Any better?”
“No feeling in my foot yet,” said Stanton. “I’m anxious about it, but I couldn’t drop too far behind you. We have no time to lose.”
“That’s so,” Curtis answered. “Glover will pull out from Jepson’s long before morning. He won’t rest much until he’s a day’s ride from the nearest post.”
They went on, and some time later the moon shone through again, flooding the plain with light. It was welcome because they were now entering the Sand Belt where scrub trees were scattered among little hills. Pushing through it, they came to a taller ridge late at night, and Curtis drew bridle on its summit. A faint, warm gleam appeared on the snow about a mile away.
“Jepson’s,” said Curtis. “Looks as if he had some reason for sitting up quite a while after he ought to be in bed.”
Stanton glanced thoughtfully down the slope in front. It was smooth and unbroken, a long, gradual descent, and he knew the farm stood on the flat at its foot. A straggling poplar bluff grew close up to the back of the buildings, but there was nothing that would cover the approach of the police, and he had no doubt that a watch was being kept.
“It’s a pity the moon’s so bright,” he remarked. “There’s a cloud or two driving up, but I don’t know that they’ll cover it.”