"Dan, is—is she—?"
A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs, "Baby—baby!"
She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled when I was gone—with no one to help her—she would die!"
Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away but—I did—at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't—" Her eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "if I hadn't—you'd have been lost in the blizzard and—my baby would have died!"
She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin.
"Did you get this then?"
She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the lantern. I thought I'd—never—get back!"
It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm milk and held it to the girl's lips.
"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it."
She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!"