The girl paid no attention to where they were going. The urge of life
was so faint within her that she did not greatly care whether she lived
or died. Her face was blue from the cold; her vitality was sapped. She
seemed to herself to have turned to ice below the hips. Outside the
misery of the moment her whole attention was concentrated on sticking
to the back of the horse. Numb though her fingers were, she must keep
them fastened tightly in the frozen mane of the animal. She recited her
lesson to herself like a child. She must stick on--she must--she must.
Whether she lost consciousness or not Sheba never knew. The next she
realized was that Swiftwater Pete was pulling her from the horse. He
dragged her into a cabin where Mrs. Olson lay crouched on the floor.
"Got to stable the horses," he explained, and left them.
After a time he came back and lit a fire in the sheet-iron stove. As the
circulation that meant life flooded back into her chilled veins Sheba
endured a half-hour of excruciating pain. She had to clench her teeth to
keep back the groans that came from her throat, to walk the floor and
nurse her tortured hands with fingers in like plight.
The cabin was empty of furniture except for a home-made table, rough
stools, and the frame of a bed.
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