Meantime the wind was at its wildest, and the plains blizzard swirled in blinding bitterness along the prairie. The hours of the night dragged by slowly to the two men hoping for the doctor’s coming, yet fearing that hope was impossible in the face of such a night.
“Carey has the keenest sense of direction I ever knew in a human being,” Jim assured Asher. “I know he will not fail us.”
Yet the morning came and the doctor came not. The day differed from the night only in the visible fierceness of the storm. The wind swept howling in long angry shrieks from the northwest. The snow seemed one dizzy, maddening whirlpool of white flakes hanging forever above the earth.
Inside the cabin Virginia’s delirium was turning to a frenzy. And Asher and Jim forgot that somewhere in the world that day there was warmth and sunlight, health and happiness, flowers, and the song of birds, and babies 126 cooing on their mothers’ knees. And the hours of the day dragged on to evening.
Meanwhile, Dr. Carey had come into Wykerton belated by the rains.
“The wind is changing. There’ll be a snowstorm before morning, Bo Peep,” he said wearily as the young colored man assisted him into warm, dry clothes. “It’s glorious to sit by a fire on a night like this. I didn’t know how tired I was till now.”
“Yes, suh, I’se glad you all is home for the night, suh. I sho’ is. I got mighty little use for this yuh country. I’se sorry now I eveh done taken my leave of ol’ Virginny.” Bo Peep’s white teeth glistened as he laughed.
“Any calls while I was gone?” Dr. Carey asked.
Bo Peep pretended not to hear as he busied himself over his employer’s wraps, until Carey repeated the question.