'll have to have help," said de Spain after a pause.

"Help?" echoed Morgan scornfully. "Where's help coming from?"

De Spain's answer was not hurried. "One of us must go after it." Nan
looked at him intently.

Duke set his hard jaw against the hurtling stream of ice that showered
on the forlorn party. "I'll go for it," he snapped.

"No," returned de Spain. "Better for me to go."

"Go together," said Nan.

De Spain shook his head. Duke Morgan, too, said that only one should
go; the other must stay. De Spain, while the storm rattled and shook
at the two men, told why he should go himself. "It's not claiming you
are not entitled to say who should go, Duke," he said evenly. "Nor
that our men, anywhere you reach, wouldn't give you the same attention
they would me. And it isn't saying that you're not the better man for
the job--you've travelled the Sinks longer than I have. But between
you and me, Duke, it's twenty-eight years against fifty. I ought to
hold out a while the longer, that's all. Let's work farther to the
east."

Quartering against the mad hurricane, they drove and rode on until the
team could hardly be urged to further effort against the infuriated
elements--de Spain riding at intervals as far to the right and the
left as he dared in vain quest of a landmark. When he halted beside
the wagon for the last time he was a mass of snow and ice; horse and
rider were frozen to each other. He got down to the ground with a
visible effort, and in the singing wind told Duke his plan and
purpose.

He had chosen on the open desert a hollow falling somewhat abruptly
from the north, and beneath its shoulder, while Morgan loosened the
horses, he scooped and kicked away a mass of snow. The wagon had been
drawn just above the point of refuge, and the two men, with the aid of
the wind, dumped it over sidewise, making of the body a windbreak
over the hollow, a sort of roof, around which the snow, driven by the
gale, would heap itself in hard waves. Within this shelter the men
stowed Nan. The horses were driven down behind it, and from one of
them de Spain took the collar, the tugs, and the whiffletree. He stuck
a hitching-strap in his pocket, and while Morgan steadied the Lady's
head, de Spain buckled the collar on her, doubled the tugs around the
whiffletree, and fastened the roll at her side in front of the
saddle.

Nan came out and stood beside him as he worked. When he had finished
she put her hand on his sleeve. He