Dick, for the first time in all their daring journey, flatly refused to follow the wishes of the Indian. He felt that to turn southward now would seem like a concession to those softer, better feelings which filled his heart, and of which he was so anxious to rid himself. If they turned south now, they might never turn north again. And that one homestead which held Stephanie represented to him the whole of the country they had left behind them. He felt that he could never face the Collinsons, could never endure the humiliation of a return to civilised life, could never endure the thought that his dreams had led him astray. "I will go on by myself if you are afraid," he said in a fury of suddenly aroused stubbornness. "I don't care what happens. I may freeze or starve or anything, but turn back I will not." Peter Many-Names shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "So," he said, "you go on if you will, I come with you. You my brother now, and I cannot leave you. But it is for true we go into death." And the ponies hung their heads and shivered restlessly before that steady, unceasing wind as they proceeded. But Dick kept his face turned obstinately northward, resolved that he would never yield. It is written that "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." And now the spirit of the wide prairies was to fight against Dick. That night they found no game. And, by the morning, fine particles of icy snow gave an edge of steel to that steady, unceasing wind. By midday the sky was overcast, the wind increased, and the snow became thicker and thicker. CHAPTER X. In the Grip of the Storm. A world of small, whirling, white flakes, rushing, eddying, drifting before a wind that continually shifted from one quarter to another; a cold, grey light filtering through this haze of stinging snow; a continuous, angry murmur, as the icy particles struck the tall, stiff, prairie grasses, sometimes deepening to a roar as the wind momentarily increased; and, in the midst of this unresting, resistless tumult, two dark figures staggering uncertainly northward, leading between them an almost exhausted pony, laden with the last remnants of their food.