She had dropped down a decided slope and hurried to a group of low bushes in a narrow draw. While the wind was sliding the snow endlessly back and forth on the higher ground, the bushes were moveless. Slipping to the ground beside them, she stamped her feet and swung her arms until the blood began to warm her chilled body. "It is so much warmer here. But what next? Oh, dear Father, help me, help me!" she cried in the depth of her need. And again the same clear whisper that had spoken to her on the headland when she watched the September prairie fire, a voice from out of the vast immensity of the Universe, came to her soul with its calm strength. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." How many a time in the days of winning the wilderness did the blessed promise come to the pioneer women who braved the frontier to build the homes of a conquering nation. "I can't try that blind game again for awhile," Virginia said to herself. "I'll run up a distress signal; maybe somewhere help is coming to me. I know now how Jim felt all alone with only a dog's instinct to depend on. I'm glad I've tried to help him, even if I have failed." She unwound the long red scarf from her neck and bound her nubia closer about her throat. Then bending the tallest bush that she could reach she fastened the bright fabric to its upper limbs and let it swing to its place again. The scarf spread a little in the breeze and hung above her, a dumb signal of distress where help was not. The minutes dragged by like hours to Virginia, trying vainly to decide on what to do next. The fury of a Plains blizzard would have quickly overcome her, but this was a lingering fight against cold and a pathless solitude. Suddenly the memory of one lonely Sabbath day came to her, and how Asher, always resourceful, had said: "When you are afraid, pray; but when you are lonely, sing." She had prayed, and comfort had come with the prayer. She could sing for comfort, if for nothing else. Somebody might hear. And so she sang. The song heard sometimes in the little prayer meeting in some country church; sometimes by sick beds when the end of days is drawing near; sometimes in hours of shipwreck, above the roar of billows on wide, stormy seas; and sometimes on battlefields when mangled forms lie waiting the burial trench and the mournful drumbeat of the last Dead March--the same song rose now on the lonely prairie winds sweeping out across the hidden trails and bleak open plains. Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee, E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me. Still all my song shall be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee. CHAPTER V A PLAINSMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL