Part 15

"A blizzard, a _blizzard_!" she moaned. "Oh, God, help them; God have mercy on them out there on those plains in this storm!"

The children, terrified at the blackness, almost like that of night, that had fallen over the prairies, and at the shrieking and howling of the wind, gathered close about her. She concealed her own fears to comfort them.

At the first approach of the storm the boys had put the cow and horses in the dugout and closed the doors. At five o'clock when they started out to feed them the door of the dugout was drifted half-way up to its top with snow, and the wind was so terrific and the whirl of the wall of snow so blinding and bewildering that they were unable to make their way from the house to the dugout.

Lige, who had started out ahead of Joe, became lost almost before he had left the shelter of the house, and were Joe not close behind him he might have wandered away and perished on the plains.

Battling their way back to the house, holding to one another, they sought the shelter of the kitchen, beaten, breathless, even in those few moments almost frozen. When they made another attempt to get to the dugout they were obliged to tie a rope to the handle of the door and clinging to it grope their way to the dugout, where they made the line fast, and when they had fed and attended to the stock were able to guide themselves by it back to the house.

As the hours passed on and the travelers did not return the anxiety of the family became almost unbearable. At last Joe drew his mother aside. "I can't stay still any longer, Mother," he said. "It is getting dark. Father and Sam ought to have been here long ago; they must have lost their way in this blizzard. Let Lige and me go out to meet them."

Hannah Peniman turned her white face upon him.

"What good would that do?" she asked. "You could not find them--perhaps you too would get lost--perhaps none of you would ever come home. Oh, God, have I not given enough, enough!"

Joe took her hands. "But, Mother," he said firmly, "we can't stay here and let Father and Sam perish in this storm without trying to save them! Lige and I are strong--we can take ropes--we'll tie ourselves to the house so we can always get back. We must go, Mother! They must have got nearly home before the blizzard struck them. They may be out there--not far away--lost and fighting their way through this storm----"

Hannah Peniman cried out and covered her face with her hands. A moment later she turned to the boy and said quickly, "Yes, you must go. It is thy duty--I would not keep thee from it. Go--go quickly! Thy father may be needing thee!"

It was bitterly hard for Hannah Peniman to send her two oldest boys--all that she and the little ones had to depend upon now--out into the howling blizzard. As she gazed out into the whirling, blinding, shrieking tempest it seemed to her almost like giving them up to inevitable destruction. But her husband, another child, were out there somewhere on those prairies in the blizzard. It was the duty of these boys to go to their rescue. All her life Duty had been her guide. So with prayers upon her lips and in her heart she wrapped them up and let them go, fighting their way into the storm inch by inch, unwinding as they went a great coil of rope that had been provided for a well-rope, but which, fortunately, had not been put in use.

As the two lads emerged from the shelter of the sod house the storm caught them in its icy embrace and almost drove the breath from their bodies. They had the wind to their backs, so fortunately were not obliged to head their way into it, but the cold was so intense that it froze the breath in their nostrils, the lashes of their eyes, and the wind so fierce that it fairly lifted them off their feet, causing them to stagger and stumble in the great drifts of snow.

They were warmly clad and well protected, but they had not gone many yards from the house when they began to realize how slight were the chances that their father and brother, caught out upon the prairies in this storm, could ever reach home. In twenty minutes their feet were like chunks of lead, their hands numb and aching, their faces, in the small space left exposed, tingling and freezing. Their breath was gone, their limbs numb and lifeless, and an exhaustion so great upon them that they were scarcely able to forge ahead and keep firm hold upon the rope.

As they stumbled and staggered forward, Joe, far in advance of his brother, stopped abruptly, while a muffled cry came from his numb lips. Spotty, whom they had taken with them, gave vent to a sharp, yelping bark and leaped forward in the snow. Under a drift, with something black protruding from its edges, lay a humped-up form.

Joe sprang to it with an agonized cry.

He bent and with his hands began to scrape away the snow, while Spotty, whimpering loudly, aided him by digging at the drift with his sharp claws. A body, lying face downward, was soon uncovered. Joe turned it over quickly, then gave a choked, quivering sob of relief. The body was that of an Indian.

Lige, fighting his way through the drifts with head bent almost to his knees, heard Spotty's whining bark and stopped.

"What's the matter?" he called out. Then seeing the body, "My Lord, _what is that_?"

"It's an Indian." Joe rose from his inspection shaking and trembling in every limb. "It scared me almost to death. I--I thought at first it might be--be--Father--or Sam."

"Who is it? Anybody we know?" Lige shouted above the howling of the blizzard.

"No, never saw him before. Poor fellow, I suppose he lost his way in the storm."

"I don't wonder," panted Lige; "I never saw such a storm. Lord, I wish we knew where Father and Sam were! They can't live long in a storm like this."

As they started forward there was a new fear, a new horror in their hearts. The sight of the Indian, young, strong, inured to the hardships of the plains, yet stark and dead in the drift, brought to them a hideous picture of what at that very moment might be happening to their father, older and not so agile and strong--and to Sam--their chum, playmate and brother--little more than a child!

Lige had not approached the Indian, but with a shuddering glance had pushed on. As Joe started forward his foot struck something imbedded in the snow. At another time he would have stopped to see what it was, but all his thoughts, all his fears were with his father out there in that whirling, blinding, shrieking blizzard, and his one thought to reach him if that was possible.

At the metallic click Lige turned and looked back.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I dunno, a tin can, I guess," answered Joe, and could not guess as he plunged forward through the blizzard that the solution of the mystery about which he had puzzled so much lay close at his feet.

When the two boys reached the utmost length of their rope they stood still, not knowing what to do next. They knew to abandon it and go forward would probably mean death, that they would soon become lost in the tempest, in which they could tell neither location nor direction, and probably perish in the storm.

They stood side by side, holding on to the rope and one another, their backs to the wind, gasping, panting, exhausted, half-frozen from the stinging blast that beat about them, half blinded by the snow that was almost waist-deep where they stood, and which covered them from head to foot while they stood still.

Spotty, crouched up close against them, whined and looked up in their faces as if trying to ask why they should be out in that storm.

"Do you suppose we'd have any chance of finding them out there, Joe?" Lige asked between chattering teeth.

"Not much," Joe answered huskily. "I don't believe anybody could live long in this."

"I wonder if we shouted----"

"They'd never hear us through this blizzard."

"Let's try it anyhow. The wind is blowing that way. They might hear--and if they were lost----"

Presently the two young voices were joined in a shout as loud as they could force from their aching chests. Spotty hearing it seemed to get some inkling that there was trouble and set up a loud barking. He ran round and round them in circles, nosing in the snow, and when Joe pointed off ahead into the reeling wall of the blizzard and cried "Go get Sam, Spotty, go get Father!" he looked up in his face, whined, barked, ran forward into the snow, then back to leap and bark about them.

Again and again they shouted, calling upon their father's name, upon Sam's, with all the strength that was in them.

After each shout they listened, straining their ears for a reply. But all that came to them was the wild roaring of the blizzard, the shrieking of the wind as it whipped up the snow and tossed it in blinding clouds over the plains.

For long they stood, the cold eating into their very vitals.

At last Lige spoke. "I can't stand it any longer, Joe, I'm freezing to death. Let's go on. They can't be very far----"

"If we ever get away from the rope we'll never get back home," answered Joe. "And you know we've got to think of Mother and the girls. If Father never comes back----"

His voice faltered and stopped.

"We'll have to go back then," gasped Lige; "we can't stand here any longer. We'll both freeze to death."

They stood, the two young, strained faces turned toward the cruel storm, their eyes trying to penetrate the reeling, swirling wall of white that eddied and whirled about them.

At this moment, when all hope was dead in their hearts, when they had both abandoned the last expectation of ever seeing their father and brother alive again, there came to their ears a far, faint cry.

They clutched each other.

"What was that?" whispered Lige, trembling like an aspen leaf.

Joe's only answer was to draw in his breath and send forth a shout so strong, so thrilling with the hope that awoke in his breast that even the tempest seemed to heed it. For a second the wind seemed to ease, and in that second they both called and shouted at the top of their lungs again and again.

Spotty too had heard the call. He seemed to know now what the trouble was, and what was expected of him. Barking loudly he plunged forward through the drifts, constantly looking back and stopping to bark and whine, as if begging the boys to follow him.

Only for a moment was he visible, then the storm closed about him and he passed out of their sight.

Presently the call came again.

"It's them--it's Father--it's Sam!" the boys shouted in chorus.

"It's them, it's them! They're alive! They're out there somewhere. Oh, Joe, let's go after them!" panted Lige.

For a moment Joe hesitated. All his heart was urging him to rush on into the blinding tempest toward the point from whence the faint calls came. But the judgment with which nature had gifted him, that judgment that was to mean so much to so many people in his after life, restrained him.

"No, we'd better stay here," he answered. "If we get away from the rope we might get lost ourselves, and make things worse. We'll do them more good by staying right here and shouting to them so we will guide them to us. I believe by the sound they're coming nearer. Listen!"

Again they sent forth a great shout.

For a moment there was no sound other than the roaring of the blizzard, then more distinctly than before came the answer.

"There!" shouted Joe, "it is nearer! They are coming this way. Listen! That's Spotty barking! I believe he sees them! All we've got to do now is to keep shouting."

With hope renewed they redoubled their shouts and yells. Nearer, and yet nearer came the answer, and at last, staggering out of the wall of white they could make out two huge shapeless bulks, which as they came nearer gradually developed into two floundering, staggering horses, with heads down and nostrils clogged and caked with ice and snow, and on their backs two shapeless creatures, which they at last saw, with a joy too great for expression, were their father and Sam, wrapped up in the buffalo robes and blankets.

Behind them, before them, around and about them leaped Spotty, barking and leaping upon them as if he could not express his joy. He it was who had reached them in their bewilderment and guided them back to the rope. They were hopelessly lost, had neither sense of location nor direction left, and had been wandering about for hours in circles when they heard, faint and far away, the sound of shouts. They answered, with all the strength that was left in them, but even then so paralyzed and bewildered had they become by cold and exhaustion that they should never have been able to follow it, but that Spotty came bursting through the storm like a guiding angel and barking and leaping about them had guided them on.

With the blizzard at its height the worn and weakened party would never have reached home but for the rope that anchored them to safety. Holding tight to it and leading the way Joe and Lige beat their way forward leading the almost dying horses, whose knees were fairly giving way beneath them from exhaustion, while the man and boy upon their backs were almost insensible from numbness and cold.

It seemed an endless fight against the tempest, but the rope held, and step by step they fought their way back by its aid, until suddenly out of the impalpable shroud that wrapped them in its icy embrace they fairly bunted into the walls of the dugout.

"_The dugout!_" gasped Joe, "thank God, oh, thank God! I began to fear we would none of us live to get home!"

Seizing Jim's bridle he led him up to the wall and lifted his father down in his strong young arms. Lige was already lifting Sam from Charley's back, so weak, so numb and exhausted that he could neither move nor speak.

As Joe was staggering toward the house with his father in his arms the door was burst open and Mrs. Peniman rushed out into the storm.

"Thank God, thank God!" she sobbed over and over, as together they lifted the wayfarers into the house, rubbed snow on their frozen faces and ears, got them into hot blankets, poured hot drinks and nourishment into them, and worked over them until life began to revive. Then they got them into bed with hot irons about them, and with a gratitude and thankfulness too great for words saw them gradually fall into a natural and healthy sleep.

Sam had a badly frozen ear, two frost-bitten toes, and a frosted finger, and Mr. Peniman's left foot was so badly frozen that it was many weeks before he could walk again. But these injuries were as nothing compared to the fact that they had come out of the most terrible blizzard ever known in the territory alive, and the thought that the lost was found, the dear ones given up as dead restored to life again, was joy enough to overbalance any amount of pain.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*CHRISTMAS ON THE PRAIRIES*

The blizzard which so nearly cost Joshua Peniman and Sam their lives raged unabated for three days. When it was over the prairies lay a vast wilderness of unbroken white from horizon to horizon, the snow lying five feet deep on the level.

For several days Mr. Peniman was compelled to remain in bed, completely prostrated by the experience he had been through. But Sam, though somewhat frost-bitten in places, awoke the next morning as well as ever, and greatly exalted by the sense of being a hero.

The blizzard was followed by a spell of bitterly cold weather, the thermometer going down to thirty-six below. While the family all felt great anxiety about the abandoned wagon and its precious contents it was impossible to go after it until the weather moderated. In the meantime they employed the hours of the long cold days by making runners, one pair of which they affixed to Joe's wagon, carrying the other pair with them when a day at last came when the weather had so far moderated that they dared face it without danger of freezing.

They set out with all six horses, Jim and Charley drawing the wagon on runners, in which Mr. Peniman, Joe, Sam, and Lige rode, Joe leading his own team and Lige the Carroll horses, which had been rechristened Major and Nellie.

There was a hard, solid crust over the deep drifts, that carried them safely, and the sun sparkled like diamonds over the vast unbroken expanse of spotless white. On their way they saw three grey wolves and ten elk, which came within two hundred yards of them, driven to forget fear by hunger.

As the improvised sledge glided smoothly over the snow the thoughts of the whole party were busy with the dangers and terrors of the blizzard.

"It was just about here that we found that poor old Indian, Lige," said Joe, scanning the snow-covered prairies about them.

"Yes; I don't see any sign of him now though," replied Lige.

"What Indian?" asked Mr. Peniman.

"When we were coming out to meet you we came upon the body of an Indian, dead and half-covered by snow," answered Joe. "I thought after we'd got you safe home we'd come back and bury him; but I guess the snow has done that better than we could, poor fellow!"

"Did you know him?"

"No, I never saw him before."

"Did you see any signs of any other Indians about?"

"No, he seemed to be all alone. And the funny thing to me was that we didn't see any signs of his pony. It seemed queer that an Indian should be way off here alone, on foot."

"If you'd looked far enough you would probably have found his pony in some draw or ravine. The poor fellow probably got lost in the blizzard, and feeling himself freezing to death deserted his horse in a drift somewhere, perhaps, and was making for some place of shelter when cold and exhaustion overcame him."

"Golly, it sure gave us a shock when we found him," broke in Lige; "I didn't see him, but Joe thought at first it was you or Sam."

"Thank God it was not," said Joshua Peniman fervently. "I know what the poor fellow must have suffered. I thought at one time his fate would surely be ours."

They found the wagon exactly where they had left it, completely covered over by a drift, its contents undisturbed, and practically uninjured by the storm.

When it was unloaded they removed the wheels and affixed to the bottom the extra pair of runners. They then replaced the contents, harnessed Kit, Billy, and black Major to it, while Jim, Charley, and Nellie were put to the other wagon. It was well for them that they had six powerful horses to pull the load, for weighted as the wagons now were they continually broke through the crust, and the journey back to the homestead required constant use of picks and shovels, and all the strength, initiative, and energy of both drivers and horses.

They reached home at last, and as soon as they had warmed, eaten, and rested a little immediately set to work to install the new heating-stove.

That night the family did not shiver about the stove in the kitchen, but clustered about in the warm glow of the new heater, cozy and comfortable, and thankful from the bottoms of their hearts, they enjoyed with the relish of appetites long denied the candy and popcorn and peanuts that Sam had brought to them.

That winter--the winter of 1856-7--will long be remembered on the prairies. From December until March storm followed storm, blizzard followed blizzard, the time between filled in with the coldest weather ever known in the west.

The young Penimans, who had run as free as wild antelopes over the plains ever since their arrival, were now compelled to stay in the house, which, small and circumscribed as it was, was sometimes almost too small to hold them.

One morning when the snow drove against the windows and a bitter wind howled across the prairies Mrs. Peniman looked across the breakfast table at her husband with a smile.

"Father," she said, "does thee not think that the time has come for us to begin our school?"

"I certainly do, my dear," replied Joshua Peniman. "I was thinking of suggesting it this morning. The children have been out of school too long now, but with all the work we had to do to make living conditions possible for the winter we have not had time to get our school started before. But now is the time to do it. They cannot be outdoors, there is little work about the place that can be done in this weather, and it will occupy their time and attention."

"But we haven't any school to go to, Father," cried Ruth, "nor any books or teachers!"

Mrs. Peniman laughed. "Just wait and see," she said. "Your school is going to be right here, and Father and I will be the teachers. Didn't you know that Father used to be a teacher in the Friends' School at home? And the books are right in the trunk over there."

"I don't want to go to school," grumbled Sam, "I want to play outdoors."

"I do," cried Joe. "I want to study. Can you teach us history and language and algebra, Father?"

Mr. Peniman smiled. "I have taught older and wiser boys than you, Joe, and I think I can teach you any branches that you will need to take up now."

"All right then, I'm all for it," declared Lige; "let's get our school started this morning."

It was quite a game after all, and they all entered gaily into the spirit of it, everybody helping to push the furniture about and arrange boxes and tables and chairs for the "school."

Mrs. Peniman took Sara, Paul, Mary, and David into the rear part of the sod house and drew the curtains between, and Mr. Peniman got out the school-books they had brought with them from Ohio and set Joe, Lige, Sam, Nina, and Ruth at work.

The program was so arranged that while some of the more advanced pupils, as Joe and Lige, were studying, the less advanced, as Sam and Ruth, were reciting. As Sam and Ruth had always kept pretty well together in their classes they were a great help to one another, but Nina was a problem. While far in advance of Sam and Ruth in English, geography, reading, and spelling, she was hopelessly behind them in grammar and mathematics. Indeed her whole curriculum of studies had been so superficially and sketchily acquired that Mr. Peniman scarcely knew what to do with her.

"I think I'll have to put you up a grade, Nina," he told her jokingly. "You are far and away beyond Ruth and Sam, yet I hardly think that on account of your arithmetic you could keep up with Lige and Joe."

"Oh, please do put me up with Lige and Joe, Father Peniman," begged Nina; "I have never really studied in my life, but I believe that I could keep up if I studied with Joe."

At first she made sad work of her lessons. Her work was brilliant but superficial, and Mr. Peniman, who insisted on thoroughness, was completely discouraged with her. On one occasion when she had signally failed in a recitation and had retired to her seat in tears Joe came to her side to comfort her.

"You don't know how to study, that's what's the matter with you, Princess," he told her. "Let me help you. We'll get our lessons together this evening."

Nina smiled up at him through her tears. "Oh, thank you, thank you, Joesy," she whispered. "I know I don't know how to study. I never really went to school, I always had governesses and tutors and never had to. But I can learn--I know I can--if you will teach me." And after that Joe and Nina always studied together, Joe's thorough, methodical mind acting as a balance as well as an incentive to the more brilliant but less logical mind of Nina.