"Now keep kicking and thrashing around, George," ordered the Sergeant sternly. "For God's sake, don't go to sleep, or you 'll be where Jim is. We 'll haul you out of this, old man. Sam, you take the rear, and hit Carroll a whack every few minutes; I'll break trail. Forward! now."
They plunged into it, ploughing a way through the drifts, the reluctant horses dragging back at first, and drifting before the fierce sweep of the wind, in spite of every effort at guidance. It was an awful journey, every step torture, but Hamlin bent to it, clinging grimly to the bit of his animal, his other arm protecting his eyes from the sting of the wind. Behind, Wasson wielded a quirt, careless whether its lash struck the horse's flank or Carroll. And across a thousand miles of snow-covered plain, the storm howled down upon them in redoubled fury, blinding their eyes, making them stagger helplessly before its blasts.
They were still moving, now like snails, when the pale sickly dawn came, revealing inch by inch the dread desolation, stretching white and ghastly in a slowly widening circle. The exhausted, struggling men, more nearly dead than alive from their ceaseless toil, had to break the film of ice from their eyes to perceive their surroundings. Even then they saw nothing but the bare, snow-draped plain, the air full of swirling flakes. There was nothing to guide them, no mark of identification; merely lorn barrenness in the midst of which they wandered, dragging their half-frozen horses. The dead body of Wade had stiffened into grotesque shape, head and feet dangling, shrouded in clinging snow, Carroll had fallen forward across his saddle pommel, too weak to sit erect, but held by the taut blanket, and gripping his horse's ice-covered mane. Wasson was ahead now, doggedly crunching a path with his feet, and Hamlin staggered along behind.
Suddenly some awakened instinct in the numbed brain of the scout told him of a change in their surroundings. He felt rather than saw the difference. They had crossed the sand belt, and the contour of the prairie was rising. Then the Cimarron was near! Even as the conviction took shape, the ghostly outline of a small elevation loomed through the murk. He stared at it scarce believing, imagining a delusion, and then sent his cracked voice back in a shout on the wind.
"We 're thar, 'Brick'! My God, lad, here 's the Cimarron!"
He wheeled about, shading his mouth, so as to make the words carry through the storm.
"Do you hear? We're within a half mile o' the river. Stir Carroll up! Beat the life inter him! There 's shelter and fire comin'!"