At last, one afternoon, David managed to cross the Bottom at a
point where a fallen thorn-tree gave him a bridge over the soft
snow. He stayed but a little while at Kenmuir, yet when he started
for home it was snowing again.

By the time he had crossed the ice-draped bridge over the Wastrel,
a blizzard was raging. The wind roared past him, smiting him so
that. he could barely stand; and the snow leaped at him so that he
could not see. But he held on doggedly; slipping, sliding, tripping,
down and up again, with one arm shielding his face. On, on, into
the white darkness, blindly on sobbing, stumbling, dazed.

At length, nigh dead, he reached the brink of the Stony Bottom. He
looked up and he looked down, but nowhere in that blinding mist
could he see the fallen thorn-tree. He took a step forward into the
white morass, and 'sank up to his thigh. He struggled feebly to free
himself, and sank deeper. The snow wreathed, twisting, round him
like a white flame, and he collapsed, softly crying, on that soft bed.

"I canna--I canna!" he moaned.

Little Mrs. Moore, her face whiter and frailer than ever, stood at
the window, lookiing out into the storm.

"I canna rest for thinkin' o' th' lad," she said. Then, turning, she saw
ber husband, his fur cap down over his ears, buttoning his
pilot-coat about his throat, while Owd Bob stood at his feet,
waiting.