ill had told him and wrapped his feet in "Californy socks." The strips
of gunny sacking which he had refused because they looked bunglesome he
could see now were an immense protection against cold and wet. Sprudell
almost admitted, as he felt the dampness beginning to penetrate his
waterproof field boots, that there might still be some things he could
learn.

He gasped like a person taking a long, hard dive into icy water when
they plunged into the swirling world which shut out the tent they had
called home. And the wind that took his breath had a curious, piercing
quality that hurt, as Uncle Bill had said, like breathing darning
needles. "The White Death!" Literally it was that. Panting and quickly
exhausted, as he "wallered snow to his neck," T. Victor Sprudell began
seriously to doubt if he could make it.

"Aire you comin'?" There was no sympathy, only impatience, in the call
which kept coming back with increasing frequency, and Sprudell was
longing mightily for sympathy. He had a quaint conceit concerning his
toes, not being able to rid himself of the notion that when he removed
his socks they would rattle in the ends like bits of broken glass; and
soon he was so cold that he felt a mild wonder as to how his heart
could go on pumping congealed blood through the auricles and ventricles.
It had annoyed him at first when chunks of snow dropped from overhanging
branches and lodged between his neck and collar, to trickle down his
spine; but shortly he ceased to notice so small a matter. In the start,
when he had inadvertently slipped off a buried log and found himself
entangled in a network of down timber, he had struggled frantically to
get out, but now he experienced not even a glimmer of surprise when he
stepped off the edge of something into nothing. He merely floundered
like a fallen stage horse to get back, without excitement or any sense
of irritation. After three exhausting hours or so of fighting snow, his
frenzy lest he lose sight of Uncle Bill gave place to apathy. When he
fell, he even lay there--resting.

Generally he responded to Griswold's call; if the effort was too great,
he did not answer, knowing the old man would come back. That he came
back swearing made no difference, so long as he came back. He had
learned that Griswold would not leave him.

When he stumbled into a drift and settled back in the snow, it felt
exactly like his favorite leather chair by the fire-place in the
Bartlesville Commercia