“They are searching for us, and it must be—Donald!” she thought. Good Donald, whom she had treated so illy! If she ever lived through this terrible time—but how cold it was. She must not die now, so near, almost within sound of his voice. The horse, animated by the nearness of the deliverer, was struggling ahead, not swiftly, but desperately, in the persistent, whirling phalanx of snow. Again, a third time, the friendly rifle spoke, and its tone rang sweetest music to the nearly paralyzed and helpless girl. She felt her faithful horse turn, guided by the sound; she felt his heaving flank, against which her feet were placed for warmth, sway, as he pressed onward, and then she heard him neigh, loud and strong. Good creature! She tried to pat his neck with her numb fingers. His voice was stronger than hers. Hark! Is that an answering neigh borne to her? She cannot shout, for her voice is spent; but Tempest, good Tempest, is calling for her. She clings with desperate grip to his mane. Is that a voice coming out of the darkness of the snow-world? A roar, deeper than the roar of the storm, sounds in her ears, and she feels herself sinking, sinking, down, down. “Tibby, Tibby!” She hears a voice at her side and Donald is clasping her and enveloping her in something woolen and warm. She tries to reach to him her poor frozen hands as she sobs “Don, Don!” and then in a thankfulness too deep for words she snuggles down in the warm folds of the blanket and again drops her head upon the neck of her noble horse. “That is right, keep your head down! I will lead Tempest,” she hears Donald say, shouting in his strong voice to her, and again Tibby realizes they are yet in the clutches of the merciless blizzard; but her fear is gone, for Donald is with her and will save her. “Now don’t be frightened. I must discharge the gun to get my direction,” he shouts again when he has tucked her comfortably in the blankets. Tibby hears the detonation answered by a fainter sound at their left. “We are all right, child. Alice is signaling us. Try and hold out a little longer.” And Tibby feels the motion of the horse as it sways beneath her, and is dimly conscious of a sense of warmth and relief unutterable. And she forgets the storm, the danger, the oppression of death which was upon her, and sinks away into a half-sleeping state, from which she is aroused only when, at the door of Mark’s home, Donald lifts her from the saddle and carries her into shelter somewhere. She hears, as though far away, the repeated echoes of the rifle; she hears murmured words of encouragement from her rescuer, and then she opens her eyes in bewildered uncertainty as to her surroundings and feels that she has awakened from a harassing dream to find herself safely at home, and with a sigh of relief she lays her head more heavily upon Donald’s shoulder and sinks away to sleep again.