They were still moving, now like snails, when the pale sickly dawn came, revealing inch by inch the dread desolation, stretching white and ghastly in a slowly widening circle.  The exhausted, struggling men, more nearly dead than alive from their ceaseless toil, had to break the film of ice from their eyes to perceive their surroundings.  Even then they saw nothing but the bare, snow-draped plain, the air full of swirling flakes.  There was nothing to guide them, no mark of identification; merely lorn barrenness in the midst of which they wandered, dragging their half-frozen horses.  The dead body of Wade had stiffened into grotesque shape, head and feet dangling, shrouded in clinging snow, Carroll had fallen forward across his saddle pommel, too weak to sit erect, but held by the taut blanket, and gripping his horse’s ice-covered mane.  Wasson was ahead now, doggedly crunching a path with his feet, and Hamlin staggered along behind.

Suddenly some awakened instinct in the numbed brain of the scout told him of a change in their surroundings.  He felt rather than saw the difference.  They had crossed the sand belt, and the contour of the prairie was rising.  Then the Cimarron was near!  Even as the conviction took shape, the ghostly outline of a small elevation loomed through the murk.  He stared at it scarce believing, imagining a delusion, and then sent his cracked voice back in a shout on the wind.

“We ’re thar, ‘Brick’!  My God, lad, here ’s the Cimarron!”

He wheeled about, shading his mouth, so as to make the words carry through the storm.

“Do you hear?  We’re within a half mile o’ the river.  Stir Carroll up!  Beat the life inter him!  There ’s shelter and fire comin’!”

As though startled by some electric shock, Hamlin sprang forward, his limbs strengthening in response to fresh hope, ploughed through the snow to Carroll’s side, and shook and slapped the fellow into semi-consciousness.

“We ’re at the river, George!” he cried, jerking up the dangling head.  “Wake up, man!  Wake up!  Do you hear?  We ’ll have a fire in ten minutes!”

The man made a desperate effort, bracing his hands on the horse’s neck and staring at his tormentor with dull, unseeing eyes.

“Oh, go to hell!” he muttered, and went down again.

Hamlin struck him twice, his chilled hand tingling to the blow, but the inert figure never moved.

“No use, Sam.  We ’ve got to get on, and thaw him out.  Get up there, you pony!”

The ghostly shape of the hill was to their right, and they circled its base almost waist-deep in drift.  This brought the wind directly into their faces, and the horses balked, dragging back and compelling both men to beat them into submission.  Wasson was jerking at the bit, his back turned so that he could see nothing ahead, but Hamlin, lashing the rear animal with his quirt, still faced the mound, a mere dim shadow through the mists of snow.  He saw