As the two lads emerged from the shelter of the sod house the storm caught them in its icy embrace and almost drove the breath from their bodies. They had the wind to their backs, so fortunately were not obliged to head their way into it, but the cold was so intense that it froze the breath in their nostrils, the lashes of their eyes, and the wind so fierce that it fairly lifted them off their feet, causing them to stagger and stumble in the great drifts of snow.
They were warmly clad and well protected, but they had not gone many yards from the house when they began to realize how slight were the chances that their father and brother, caught out upon the prairies in this storm, could ever reach home. In twenty minutes their feet were like chunks of lead, their hands numb and aching, their faces, in the small space left exposed, tingling and freezing. Their breath was gone, their limbs numb and lifeless, and an exhaustion so great upon them that they were scarcely able to forge ahead and keep firm hold upon the rope.
As they stumbled and staggered forward, Joe, far in advance of his brother, stopped abruptly, while a muffled cry came from his numb lips. Spotty, whom they had taken with them, gave vent to a sharp, yelping bark and leaped forward in the snow. Under a drift, with something black protruding from its edges, lay a humped-up form.
Joe sprang to it with an agonized cry.
He bent and with his hands began to scrape away the snow, while Spotty, whimpering loudly, aided him by digging at the drift with his sharp claws. A body, lying face downward, was soon uncovered. Joe turned it over quickly, then gave a choked, quivering sob of relief. The body was that of an Indian.
Lige, fighting his way through the drifts with head bent almost to his knees, heard Spotty's whining bark and stopped.
"What's the matter?" he called out. Then seeing the body, "My Lord, what is that?"
"It's an Indian." Joe rose from his inspection shaking and trembling in every limb. "It scared me almost to death. I—I thought at first it might be—be—Father—or Sam."
"Who is it? Anybody we know?" Lige shouted above the howling of the blizzard.
"No, never saw him before. Poor fellow, I suppose he lost his way in the storm."