No abyss yawned beneath the feet of the laboring horses nor the runners of the creaking, inching sleigh. But that road they trod was like the narrow path over a morass: all about it the footing was soft, deep, delaying. If iron-shod hoof or steel-shod runner slipped, it meant loss of time, lowering of precious bodily heat, fatigue, failing of the heart--all preparations for that slowing-down of the restless body-molecules to the final stoppage which should mark the cold triumph of the frost: "And here and there, in drifts of snow--" "Ugh!" said Ware, humorously. But there was nothing comic in that nearing wall, whose base crept over the drifts like the edge of a tide at flow. It might have been midnight, or a little before, when the Galician girl whose function it had been to keep the fire going in the Nixon farmhouse stove, saw a face move by the window outside, on the way to the door. Mary had plenty of time to see it, for the face moved very slowly beyond the frost-edged pane; and she noted that it was not the face of John Nixon, with his corduroy cap, nor the red face under a "dogskin" cap, of Jim Burns. Nor was the knock, which presently sounded faint and erratic on the door-panel--like the chance rap of a frozen branch on a window--recognizable as that of anybody she knew. She was a little afraid, as she listened to that rap which sounded as though the visitor were half-asleep; but Mary knew enough about the northwest not to keep a man standing outside on a night like this, no matter who he might be. Accordingly, she ran and opened the door. "G'd ev'ng," said the blue lips of Sir William Ware, as he fumbled his way across the doorjamb. Mary, glancing at his face, saw that uncanny white patches covered his cheeks and that his nose was whitened to the bridge. His feet, on the floor, dragged and scuffled like the ends of cordwood sticks. Mary knew: she had spent five winters in the west. "You stay there," she said, backing Sir William out of the doorway with a vigorous palm, "till I big pail ice-water bring. I fix you." "Ah, but--stop a bit," Ware spoke thickly; "your master--and mistress--far along the trail--need help. We--Burns and I--followed the horses here. Nixon stayed--with wife--she wouldn't leave the sleigh." He stopped and leaned heavily back against the door frame. Mary saw that his eyes were closing. "I fix you first," she said, snatching up an enormous wooden bucket, throwing her apron over her head, and rushing out to the well. About her the huge veil-ends of the storm swirled as, racing down the track of light from the open doorway, she disappeared a moment into the roaring dark; then, presently, came into view again, running, with the newly-pumped icy water splashing over the edge of the bucket.