Ware, his initiative suspended and the world appearing to race about him in a dizzy flicker of white and glare and black, leaned upon the door. He felt his legs giving way, but could not stiffen them; and presently he fell into a sitting posture on the door-sill, with the wild night on his right hand, and on his left the homely interior of the farmhouse with its coal-oil lamp flaring frantically in the draught from the open door. In this position, and with his eyes closed, Sir William felt a hand come up to his face and rub so vigorously that the back of his head bumped the door-panel with a jolt. "I don't know what's happening," was Sir William's vague thought, "but let it happen, whatever it is. Let anything happen--now." The rubbing continued, with an occasional pause by the aggressor--that might have been for more or less malicious scrutiny of his or her work--and presently Sir William became aware of a slight tingling in a face that up till now had been wholly without sensation. The tingling grew to a glow; and with the glow came a bracing mental effect that brought Ware's eyes open. "See--I fix your face," said the voice of Mary, the Galician girl, in a self-congratulatory way, "now I take me your boots off." And, without waiting for the word of consent, she ripped open the laces and drew off Ware's boots and socks. After which Sir William, watching with a curious half-interest, beheld her scoop up liberal handfuls of snow and commence to rub the bared feet from toe to ankle, as she had rubbed the face. In the midst of this operation, a peal of bells sounded; and around the corner of the house came Jim Burns, with a fresh team hitched to the "jumper". Burns, a tough westerner, had been barely affected by the storm, except for frozen cheeks and nose, which he had rubbed out down at the stable. His feet, clad in thick felt "duffels", had escaped freezing. "Hey-o;" he said, unconcernedly; "gittin' thawed out all right? Mary, I got to go back for Jack and the Missis--the sleigh's stuck in a drift, about two mile back along the trail. We cut the ponies loose, an' they led us home, right up to the stable door. Jack, he was a-goin' to come along too, at first, and fetch the Missis on his back--him and me would have took turns carryin' her. But she wouldn't hear of it, so Jack he told us to go on ahead. Said the ponies would take us home, all right, and I could come back in the jumper when I got warmed up. But," Jim Burns could not help a bit of western swagger, "I'm all right--I don't need no warmin' up. Rustle me a couple more blankets, Mary. I'll finish rubbin' them feet out." "Aa, you go on, Jeem Burns," Mary, interested in this tall, pleasant-faced man the storm had brought her, pushed Burns away; "You know you where yon blankets is. You get them yourself--see!"