path led once by the home of Medaine Robinette, and he clambered toward the little house with little more of feeling than of approaching that of the most unfamiliar ranchman. Smoke was coming from the chimney. There were the marks of snowshoes. But they might mean nothing in the battle for existence. Houston scrambled up to the veranda and banged on the door. A moment more, and he faced Medaine Robinette. "Just wanted to see if you're all right," came almost curtly. "Yes--thank you." "Need any food?" "I have plenty." "Anybody sick?" "No. Lost Wing has found wood. We're keeping warm. Tell me--" and there was the politeness of emergency in her tones--"is there any need for women in Tabernacle? I am willing to go if--" "Not yet. Besides, a woman couldn't get in there alone." "I could. I'm strong enough. Besides, I've been out--I went to the Hurd Ranch yesterday. Mrs. Hurd's sick--Lost Wing brought me the word." "Then keep on with that. There's nothing in Tabernacle--and no place for any one who isn't destitute. Stay here. Have you food enough for Hurd's?" "Yes. That is--" "I'll leave my pack. Take that over as you need it. There's enough for a week there. If things don't let up by that time, I'll be by again." "Thank you." Then the door was closed, and Houston went his way again, back to Tabernacle and a fresh supply for his pack--hardly realizing the fact that he had talked to the woman he could not help wishing for--the woman he would have liked to have loved. The world was almost too gray, too grim, too horrible for Houston even to remember that there was an estrangement between them. Dully, his intellect numbed as his body was numbed, he went back to his tasks,--tasks that were seemingly endless. Day after day, the struggle remained the same, the wind, the snow, the drifts, the white fleece flying on the breast of the gale even when there were no storm clouds above, blotting out the light of the sun and causing the great ball to be only a red, ugly, menacing thing in a field of dismal gray. Night after night the drifts swept, changing, deepening in spots where the ground had been clear before, smoothing over the hummocks, weaving across the country like the vagaries of shifting sands before they finally packed into hard, compressed mounds, to form bulwarks for newer drifts when the next storm came. Day after day,--and then quiet, for forty-eight hours.