apparition of savagery outlined itself between them and the sky, yet
slowly, steadily, every instinct of the plains exercised, they passed
unseen.

In the earliest gray of dawn the two wearied men crept out upon the
upper plateau, dragging their horses. Behind, the mists of the night
still hung heavy and dark over the valley, yet with a new sense of
freedom they swung into their saddles, faced sternly the chill wind of
the north, and rode forward across the desolate snow fields. It was no
boys' play! The tough, half-broken Indian ponies kept steady stride,
leaping the drifts, skimming rapidly along the bare hillsides. From
dawn to dark scarcely a word was uttered. By turns they slept in the
saddle, the one awake gripping the others' rein. Once, in a strip of
cottonwood, beside a frozen creek, they paused to light a fire and make
a hasty meal. Then they were off again, facing the frosty air, riding
straight into the north. Before them stretched the barren snow-clad
steppes, forlorn and shelterless, with scarcely a mark of guidance
anywhere, a dismal wilderness, intersected by gloomy ravines and frozen
creeks. Here and there a river, the water icy cold and covered with
floating ice, barred their passage; down in the valleys the drifted
snow turned them aside. Again and again the struggling ponies
floundered to their ears, or slid head-long down some steep declivity.
Twice Hamlin was thrown, and once the Osage was crushed between
floating cakes and submerged in the icy stream. Across the open
barrens swept the wind into their faces, a ceaseless buffeting,
chilling to the marrow; their eyes burned in the snow-glare. Yet they
rode on and on, voiceless, suffering in the grim silence of despair,
fit denizens of that scene of utter desolation.

At the Cimarron the half-frozen Indian collapsed, falling from his