wooden pegs stumping
on the frozen earth. Her hands had lost all feeling, although she
managed to draw the rabbit-skin furs that Carlos had given her, over her
head and to keep her hands under them. The snow no longer fell in flakes
but in white sheets, lashed and driven by the force of the storm.

The trail across the plains to the Ralston Ranch was quickly hidden.
Mountains of snow piled up in front of Olive, deep gullies appeared at
her feet, where the land was usually as level as a table, and she had no
idea in which direction she should try to travel. But she fought her way
on, thinking perhaps that another wanderer might overtake her, or that
she might catch a glimpse of the lights of some ranch house. If she
could find an objective point ahead of her, she felt that she might get
to it. But to move blindly in a circle of snow, brought no hope of any
relief.

Yet Olive knew she must keep moving if she wished to live. She did not
suffer the same agony from the cold, that she had at first. The wind
blew her about, as though she had been a bit of paper. She staggered and
fell in the snowdrifts, got up and pressed on wishing that even a wild
animal would scurry past her on the way to its retreat. But animals are
always wiser than human beings before the approach of a storm. Every
head of cattle, every horse on the plains, every beast in the forest had
found a rude shelter. Olive felt herself entirely alone in a savage,
white world.

But in quiet natures like Olive's, there is a wonderful power of
resistance. She had endured so much, she had learned the fortitude that
comes with misfortune.

She prayed silently through the hours she struggled. There were moments
when she believed she spied the light of Rainbow Lodge gleaming on the
cruel surface of the snow. She would fight her way to this place, only
to discover that her own blind desire had led her astray.

Night came on, but there was little change from the twilight. The few
stars that broke through the clouds only made the way more blinding.

Olive's patience, Carlos' planning seemed to have been in vain.

Again Olive dreamed she saw some lights ahead of her. Her mind was no
longer clear. She could not remember why she was out alone in the snow.
She cried for Jack, when she had the strength, but the tears froze on
her face.

Olive reached out her arms toward her vision of the lights of Rainbow
Lodge. She was either too blind or too utterly spent to see the