"The blizzard grew worse. There was no bearing up against its overwhelming anger. Death was in that biting, lashing wind, and in the swirling blasts of blinding snow, tearing and shrieking from every direction at once.
"Even the horses tottered and staggered, and often stood rigidly stubborn with their forelegs stretched out to support them and keep them from falling; and at last Corporal Pretty John's muddled brain told him that Lean Bear had slipped to the ground and was walking beside him with a hand gripping him tightly.
"And through the hissing and screeching of the ice-laden wind he fancied that he could hear some one calling to him from afar. The voice was like the voice of a weird, unearthly spirit mocking him, jeering at him from away back of the wind.
"'Pretty John! Pretty John!' it wailed faintly. 'Keep awake, you! Keep awake! You sleep, then die! That is it! You die! Keep awake! Keep awake! How!'
"Vaguely and in a dazed, dreamy sort of way, Pretty John then realised that it wasn't the voice of any phantom spirit, but of Lean Bear, the captured criminal, yelling into his ear, and that the Indian was roughly shaking him and pummelling him, while he dragged him forcibly from his saddle.
"Pretty John fell in a helpless heap of fur coat and stiffly frozen blanket, utterly exhausted. He couldn't move; he couldn't think. He didn't want to move or to think. All that he wanted was just to lie there and sleep and forget—forget everything.
"'Leave me alone!' he pleaded. 'Why don't you escape? You've got your chance. Let me sleep—sleep!'
"But Lean Bear wouldn't leave him alone. He struck him and shook him, then flung his arms about him, and wrestled to hoist him first to his knees and then to his feet. Then, with his arms clasped around the senseless trooper's waist, he pushed him along, forced him to move.
"'Walk!' he shouted. 'You hear? Yes, now you walk. Walk! Walk—so! Yes, yes. Ah, you white man!' And again he began to strike and thump with one hand, while with the other he supported the corporal's tottering body."
Sergeant Silk paused and pulled once or twice at his unlighted pipe.