Up from the southwest the ugly brown clouds were still rolling, and the sky above them still darkened; the mountains were gone in the mist, the chill wind strengthened and shrieked over the plain. Harley kept his arm around Sylvia's waist, and drew her more closely to him that he might shelter her.
"Let the snow come," he said.
Great white flakes, borne upon the edge of the wind, fell damp upon their faces, and suddenly the air was filled with them as they came in blinding clouds; the wind ceased to shriek and died, and the brown clouds, now fused into one mass that covered all the heavens, opened and let down the snow in unbroken volume.
"We must go on, sweetheart," said Harley, rousing himself. "To stand here is death. We may find some kind of shelter if we go; there is none in this place."
They walked on, their heads bent a little, as the snow was coming straight down. They could not see twenty yards before them through the white cloud, and Harley was scarcely conscious whether they climbed the swells or descended into the dips between.
Sylvia covered her head with a small shawl that she wore. Harley wanted to take off his coat and wrap it around her, but she would not let him.
"I am not cold," she said; "I think it is the walking that keeps me warm."
It was partly that, but it was more the presence of Harley and the state of spiritual exaltation in which they remained. Both took it as a matter of course that they were to die in a few hours, but they had no fear of this death, and it was not even worth while to talk or think of it. Harley had spoken merely through habit and instinct of moving on lest they die, and it was these same unconscious motives that made them struggle, although they took no interest in their own efforts.
"We may come to a clump of trees," said Sylvia, "or to a hollow in a rocky hill-side; that happens sometimes in this part of the Dakotas."
"Maybe we shall," said Harley, but he thought no more about it.