With infinite difficulty, but with hearts light and grateful, they carried him on an improvised stretcher to the sled. Bart explained that he had been lured further and further away by a large eagle that had kept just out of range, and in his excitement he had at first paid no attention to the storm. Finally its increasing fury and the memory of his distance from home had brought him to his senses, and he had struck out for the West Point road. Still he had no fears or misgivings, but while climbing the slope on which he was found, he slipped, fell, and in trying to save himself came down with his whole weight on a loose stone, and sprained his left ankle. He tried to crawl and hobble forward, and for a time gave way to something like panic. He soon found that he was using up his strength, and that he would perish with the cold before he could make half a mile. He then crawled under the sheltering ledge where Webb discovered him, and by the aid of his good woodcraft soon had a fire, for it was his fortune to have some matches. A dead and partially decayed tree, a knife strong enough to cut the saplings when bent over, supplied him with fuel. Finally the drowsiness which long exposure to cold induces began to oppress him. He fought against it desperately for a time, but, as events proved, was overpowered. "God bless you, Webb!" he said, concluding his story. "You have saved my life." "We have all had a hand at it," was the quiet reply. "I couldn't have done anything alone." Wrapped up beyond the possibility of further danger from the cold, and roused from time to time, Burt was carried homeward as fast as the drifts permitted, the horses' bells now chiming musically in the still air. * * * * * As hour after hour passed and there was nothing left to do, Amy took Johnnie on her lap, and they rocked back and forth and cried together. Soon the heavy lids closed over the little girl's eyes, and shut off the tears. Alf had already coiled up on a lounge and sobbed himself to sleep. Maggie took up the little girl, laid her down beside him, and covered them well from the draughts that the furious gale drove through every crack and cranny of the old house, glad that they had found a happy oblivion. Amy then crept to a footstool at Mrs. Clifford's side--the place where she had so often seen the youth whom the storm she now almost began to believe had swept from them forever--and she bowed her head on the old lady's thin hand and sobbed bitterly. "Don't give way so, darling," said the mother, as her other hand stroked the brown hair. "God is greater than the storm. We have prayed, and we now feel that he will do what is best." "Oh, that I had your faith!" "It will come in time--when long years have taught you his goodness."