Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/127

Rh to strike home to her thinly-clad body. It had been so warm this morning, she told herself. No one would have expected this. And there were four miles of bare saddle-backs before her yet. Four miles where she would catch the storm full. But she dared not go back to the shacks. There would be no one there now but the ghost of the woman who was a weetigo. All about her the trees were moaning; bending uneasily in the wind-puffs, and sloughing the snow where they could, as though in preparation for what was coming. Then the snow began in earnest. Sleety masses with the wetness of spring in them, but cold enough for mid-winter. The wind buffeted and blinded her and took her breath.

"I must go on," she gasped. "I must. But it's so cold. It's so cold." She was sobbing in her throat; stumbling, numb, worn-out with her struggle and the grasp of the cold on her. Her skirts grew wet and dragged her down. She dropped at last; too exhausted to care, though it meant death. That wind was beating the breath out of her. And the snow was cold. So cold.

Then strong arms came round her, and someone swung her up, holding her close, and a human voice came to her out of somewhere.

"There's a shack down here. We'll get under shelter. All right. It's all right now."

Jennifer was past words. She clung to Dick weakly as to something warm and alive. And then the tearing noisy storm was shut out with the banging of the shack door and she slid down on a pile of musty blue-joint grass. Dick was pulling his gloves off and rubbing her cheeks between his strong warm hands.

"You've half-frozen," he said. "You poor child. Why did we let you go? Why did we let you go! Is that better? I can see the blood coming back. Now your hands. And how about your feet? I'll get a fire directly. You poor child."

"I would have died," she sobbed. "I would have died if you hadn't come."

"Not you. These storms don't last long enough. But you might have got badly chilled. Wait a minute and I'll make a fire."