“Hark! there is the report of Donald’s rifle. I must answer it.” And Alice sprang to the window, and raising it a little way, put forth the heavy gun and discharged it, its detonation bringing an answering shriek from Mrs. Wylie. CHAPTER XXXI CAUGHT IN A BLIZZARD Tibby had foolishly dallied in her home-coming. Even after mounting her horse she sat in the saddle and indulged in the prolonged exchanges of good-bys so common to young girls, until the blackening sky and threatening flakes of snow admonished her, forcibly, to return in haste. Tempest, glad to have permission to go at last, sped over the ground with wonderful strides, covering the first half of the journey in a short space of time; but as the wind arose and the soft flakes gave way to hard, rice-like, cutting kernels of snow that beat in his face, he became staggered in his pace, and finally, as the storm in all its fury bore down upon them, both horse and rider lost all knowledge of distance and location, their only effort being to keep the road. Tibby, blinded by the storm, and forced to ride with her head bent forward and down, felt her faithful beast stop and whirl half around as a furious blast, chill as the arctic snows, struck them. The icy flakes cut into her flesh like splinters of steel as she lifted her face to look about her. She could see nothing except the whirling deluge of white enveloping her. She was lost, lost. “O Tempest, good Tempest!” she wailed, “can you see the path no longer? Will not your instincts guide you home? Try again, Tempest! Alas, I know not which way to turn you! But go, Tempest, go! We shall freeze if we stay here. Go!” But the horse, buffeted by the driving storm in his face, would move forward only a few paces, then turn his head and stop, bewildered. “O my God, what shall I do?” she moaned. The cold was creeping up her limbs and benumbing her. She felt that she must die there, and so near home. She thought she must have traversed nearly the distance, if they had kept the road. Ah, if they had kept the road. She was in doubt as to that. The horse, cowering and baffled, had turned around. She turned him back, facing the storm, and with hand and voice she urged him forward. For several moments he plunged into the opaque snow-world before them, then again blinded, baffled, and storm-beaten, the faithful animal stopped, and bowed his head to the fury of the elements.