ery now
and then, and stung the few patches of the trooper's unprotected skin
as though they had been pricked with red-hot needles. It, however,
seldom lasted more than a minute, and when it whirled away, a half-moon
shone down for a moment between smoky clouds. The uncertain radiance
showed the thrashing birches rising from the hollow, row on row, struck
a faint sparkle from the ice beneath them, and then went out leaving
the gloom intensified. It was evident to Shannon that his eyes would
not be much use to him that night, for which reason he kept his ears
uncovered at the risk of losing them, but though he had been born in
the bush and all the sounds of the wilderness had for him a meaning,
hearing did not promise to be of much assistance. The dim trees roared
about him with a great thrashing of twigs, and when the wilder gusts
had passed there was an eery moaning through which came the murmur of
leagues of tormented grasses. The wind was rising rapidly, and it
would, he fancied, drown the beat of approaching hoofs as well as any
cry from his comrades.

Four of them were hidden amidst the birches where the trail wound
steeply upwards through the bluff across the river, two on the nearer
side not far below, and Trooper Shannon's watch would serve two
purposes. He was to let the rustlers pass him if they rode for the
ford, and then help to cut off the retreat of any who escaped the
sergeant, while if they found the ice too thin for loaded beasts or
rode towards the bridge, a flash from his carbine would bring his
comrades across in time to join the others who were watching that
trail. It had, as usual with Stimson's schemes, all been carefully
thought out, and the plan was eminently workable, but unfortunately for
the grizzled sergeant a better brain than his had foreseen the
combination.

In the meanwhile the lad felt his limbs grow stiff and almost useless,
and a lethargic numbness blunt the keenness of his faculties as the
heat went out of him. He had more than usual endurance, and utter
cold, thirst, and the hunger that most ably helps the frost, are not
infrequently the portion of the wardens of the prairie, but there is a
limit to what man can bear, and the troopers who watched by the frozen
river that night had almost reached it. Shannon could not feel the
stirrups with his feet. One of his ears was tingling horribly as the
blood that had almost left it resumed its efforts to penetrate the
congealin