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Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter, they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the side of the room.
Dan felt behind him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm. "I'll get him up or cut leaders loose! If I don't come back drive to light. Don't get out!" Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward. Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they travelled a team's length ahead.
Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the second who guided the third. "Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready Smith? Got the rope?" They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten steps.
Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into the narrow space without protest. "Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?" "On the other side, toward the shack. Where's Smith?" "Here, by the shed."
As they watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a lullaby. Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where she's marked the wall rubbing against it!
Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter, they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the side of the room.
The blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two at last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, slinging to the broken rope, rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in his hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind me if we're to live through it!"
"Yes, a railroad first of all." Dan shifted the lines from one fur-mittened hand to the other, swinging the freed numbed arm in rhythmic beating against his body as he looked along the horizon a bit anxiously. The stranger shivered visibly. "It's a god-forsaken country. Why don't you get out?" Hillas, following Dan's glance around the blurred sky line, answered absently, "Usual answer is 'Leave?
He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again. "This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your kind. This is on the square, Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe I'm American enough to trust?" The boy tried to speak. With stiffened body and clenched hands he struggled for self-control.
The older man leaned toward the younger. "Stove fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil blaze. Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00 here." They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then "pst!" another bit of iron fell into the pail.
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