It was all a little wonderful, that limitless white world. In only one direction lay any variation. That was ahead of him. Far away on the twilit skyline a sharp, dark line was drawn right across his path. How far on it was, Fyles could only roughly estimate. Something less than ten miles would bring him to the wood-lined banks of Buffalo Coulee.
Fyles’ mare required neither check nor urging, and certainly no guidance. The deep snow trail was under her feet. And outside it depths of snow in which she had no desire to flounder. So she would go on at that easy gait of the prairie broncho that eats up distance so voraciously.
The journey had been long and the man was drowsy from monotony and hours spent in the crisp cold air. Furthermore the glare of snow, even in the moonlight, afforded an overwhelming desire to close his tired eyes. Again and again they closed. But each time they did so the nod of his head startled him at once to wakefulness.
Fyles’ mare was breasting an easy incline to the crest of a higher wave than usual in the roll of prairie undulations. The rise shut out the dark line which was their goal. In place of it was the sharp cut where the starry heavens came down to the earth. Fyles awoke as his head jerked.
He was at the summit of the wave crest. The far distance was in more pronounced view. For he was gazing down a long slope that was deeper than usual.
But now he was wider awake than had been the case for more than an hour. There was no longer any desire to close his eyes. The brain of the man was keenly searching.
Sharply outlined against the general background of snow ahead, a horseman was sitting motionless at the trail side. He was there without shelter. He was there utterly alone in the white waste of winter. Why?
The mud-brown mare flung up her head with a faint whinny of glad greeting. An answer came back and disposed of all possibility of illusion.
The mare felt the check of the rein. She halted on the instant. Her ears were sharply pricked, and her nose was flung up. Presently Fyles was speaking to the teamster who had driven abreast.
“You’ll wait right here, Arnold,” he ordered. “Don’t move till I get along back. There’s some boy waiting around for me down there ahead. Guess he’d best find me.”