and
blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a
grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside
her, saving the latter but losing her own.

'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped
the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as
if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly
before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the
half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind,
and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the
winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.

This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for
many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman
whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park
house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious,
curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work
rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy
enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had
stopped at the station and told his story there, making the
baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an
accessory.

'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the
stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car
farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a
conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it
was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off
so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or
rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was
pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered
up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over
there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.'

This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two
double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound
twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to
tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German
steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the
significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the
state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York