The reins slipped through his fingers. He stirred uneasily. Then his eyes opened again. For a moment his sagging lips closed. He was summoning all his failing strength. He clutched the reins in one hand, and with the other knotted them about his wrist. Then, with a gasp, his left hand dropped from his task, while his right arm was held outstretched by the strain of the pulling horses upon the reins.
There was now no longer any demand for further effort, and the drooping body lolled over against the side of the cart as though the man were seeking his rest. His head hung away at a helpless angle, and his legs straggled. And thus the speeding team raced clear of the mountain world and plunged through the darkness to the prairie beyond.
The moon rose in all its cold splendor. The stars dimmed before its frigid smile. The black vault of the heavens lit with a silvery sheen, embracing the prairie world beneath its bejeweled pall.
The sea of grass lay shadowed in the moonlit dusk. But, in sharp relief, a white ribbon-like trail split it from end to end, like some forlorn creature with white outspread arms yearning in desolation––yearning for the bustle and rush of busy life which it is denied, yearning to be relieved from so desperate a solitude.
The vastness and silence dwarfs even thought. The things which are great, which have significance, which have meaning to the human mind are lost in such a world. Life itself becomes infinitesimal.
There is something moving in a tiny ebullition of dust along the white trail. It looks so small. It moves so slowly, crawling, seemingly, at a snail’s pace. It is almost microscopical in the vastness.
Yet it is only these things by comparison. It is neither small, nor is it traveling at a snail’s pace. It is a cart drawn by six horses, racing as though pursued by all the demons of the nether world.
And in the driving-seat is a curious, stiffly swaying figure. It is strangely inanimate. Yet it suggests something that no ordinary human figure could suggest. It is in its huddled attitude, its ghastly face, its staring, unseeing eyes, which gaze out in every direction, as the jolting of the cart turns and twists the body from side to side. There is something colossal, something strangely stirring in the suggestion of purpose in the figure. There is something to inspire wonder in the most sluggish mind. It tells a story of some sort of heroism. It tells a story of a master mind triumphing over bodily weakness and suffering. It tells a story of superlative defiance––the defiance of death.