Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/174

150 You Han had no knowledge of desert storms in his home on the bank of the Pei-ho. He gasped whatever prayers came to him, but placed his active faith, still unshaken, in the ability of his master to save him from the choking, freezing terror. The man and the boy were not only stifled, but soon benumbed, for neither had ever felt anything to compare with the searching cold of this blast. They stumbled from one hill to another, sometimes keeping their feet, falling oftener, rising more slowly, the little mule trying in vain to turn tail to the storm.

There could be no conversation. At length the deserter muttered drowsily to the storm such fragments as these:

"No place like home. It's the finish that's comin' to me. Cudn't take me medicine like a man. P'rhaps this 'll blow over soon. I'm blinded entirely. Good God! forgive me poor cowardly sowl! I niver meant to go wrong. Had to bring that poor fool You Han into this mess."

The deserter pitched forward on hands and knees, his rifle buried somewhere in his circling wake. He caught hold of You