At the corral the two young men saw at a glance that the girls’ ponies had not been returned by Cholo Sam. They went on toward the hotel in silence. Now the first needles of the ice-storm cut their faces. It was nothing like any storm Hunt had ever seen. And how fast it grew in volume and strength! Cholo Sam and Maria were at the door of the hotel, looking down the street eagerly and anxiously. “Which way did they go?” shouted Hurley, without any preamble. “Oh, Señor Hurley!” cried Sam. “To the East. T’roo the East Fork.” Already sight of the rugged path up the heights on that side of the canyon was blotted out by the driving ice particles. “Shall we get horses and go after them?” panted Hunt. “Horses won’t live in this. Maybe we can stir up some of the boys to go with us. Wish I had my roughnecks here.” But there was not time to go back to the mine. The storm had come on so suddenly that the workers above the town might hole in until the first force of the blizzard was over. Hunt ran up to his room to get his heavier coat and a couple of blankets. As he descended the stairs, Cholo Sam came from the barroom with a filled flask in his hand. “Some of the best brandy, Señor Hunt,” he said. “It is for the seekness only that comes with the cold. Ah thees ice in the lungs is death, señor—death!” The parson took it without hesitation and slipped it into his pocket. He ran out to see Joe Hurley coming out of Colorado Brown’s place with Jib Collins and Cale Mack behind him. In another few seconds, so rapidly did the driving ice thicken the air, Hunt lost sight of the trio and they fairly bumped into him when they reached the spot where he stood. “That you, Willie?” shouted Hurley. “We’ll get a rope and tie ourselves together. Tie mufflers over our faces. Say, there may be some more fellers in the Grub Stake who will help.” He turned that way, finding his direction more by sense than by sight. They stumbled up the steps and in at the door of the Grub Stake. At that very moment a half-frozen man, leading a storm-battered horse, had fallen at Tolley’s rear door. The dive keeper was dragging him into the place like a log as Hurley, Hunt, and their companions strode into the barroom. CHAPTER XXIV—THE BARRIER DOWN—FOR A MOMENT “Hey, you fellers!” shouted Tolley to the several men in the barroom of the Grub Stake. “Come give me a hand. Here’s a feller that’s taken pretty near his last pill, I reckon.” The parson, as well as Hurley and the others, responded to the dive keeper’s call. Tolley kicked shut the back door with savage insistence against the driving wind. “I reckon his hoss is done for,” he panted. “But the feller himself—Hi, Nobbs! get him a jolt of something hot.” Hunt and Joe Hurley helped raise the senseless man, and, with Tolley carrying the feet, they moved him close to one of the glowing stoves. His hat fell off. It was Joe who voiced a surprise that was not his alone.