With a lump in his throat Jim turned away--whither? His own powers had
nearly ebbed out. Of what use was it to battle further against the gale,
when he knew not in which direction to go?

With a sharp setting of the teeth he set himself to stimulate into
activity his benumbed faculties. Where was he? What was he doing there?
Ah, yes, he was after those stampeded horses. Well, he would never come
up with them now. He had done his best, and he had failed.

Taking out his notebook, as well as his benumbed powers would let him,
Jim scrawled a few words in the darkness. The powers of nature had been
too strong for him. What was a man to set himself against that tempest?

But stay! there was One stronger than the gale. Man was beyond hearing,
but was not God everywhere? Now, if ever, was the time to call upon Him.

No words would come but the familiar "Our Father," which Jim had said
every night for longer than he could remember. He had no power to think
out any other petition. "Our Father," he muttered drowsily, "which art
in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. . . ."

The murmur ceased; the speaker was asleep.

They found him a few days later, when the snow had ceased to fall, and
the wind swept over the prairie, stripping off the deadly white
covering, and leaving the khaki jacket a conspicuous object. The
sergeant saw it, and pointed--he could not trust his voice to speak.
Eagerly the little band bent over the body of their comrade.

"Why, he's smiling! And see here! he's been writing something in his
notebook. What is it?"

Reverently they took the book from the brown hand, and the sergeant read
the words aloud:

"Lost, horse dead. Am trying to push on. Have done my best."

"That he did. There was good stuff in him, lads, and perhaps he was
wanted up aloft!"

A solemn hush held the party. "'I did my best,'" said a trooper softly
at length. "Ah, well, it'll be a good job for all of us, if when our
time comes we can say that with as much truth as he!"

[Sidenote: Mary sacrificed herself to help another. The renunciation in
time brought reward.]

Mary's Stepping Aside

BY

EDITH C. KENYON

"How very foolish of you! So unbusinesslike!" cried Mrs. Croft angrily.

"I could not do anything else, Hetty. Poor Ethel is worse off than we
are. She has her widowed mother to help; they are all so poor, and it
was such a struggle for Mrs. Forrest to pay that L160 for Ethel's