The White Desert | Page 8

leap beneath him, a maddened, crazed
thing, tired of the hills, tired of the turmoil and strain of hours of
fighting, racing with all the speed that gravity could thrust upon it for
the bottom of the Pass. The brakes were gone, the emergency had not
even lasted through the first hill. Barry Houston was now a prisoner of
speed,--cramped in the seat of a runaway car, clutching tight at the
wheel, leaning, white, tense-faced, out into the snow, as he struggled to

negotiate the turns, to hold the great piece of runaway machinery to the
crusted road and check its speed from time to time in the snowbanks.
A mile more--halted at intervals by the very thing which an hour or so
before Barry Houston had come almost to hate, the tight-packed banks
of snow--then came a new emergency. One chance was left, and Barry
took it,--the "burring" of the gears in lieu of a brake. The snow was
fading now, the air was warmer; a mile or so more and he would be
safe from that threat which had driven him down from the mountain
peaks,--the possibility of death from exposure, had he, in his light
clothing, attempted to spend the night in the open. If the burred gears
could only hold the car for a mile or so more--
But a sudden, snapping crackle ended his hope. The gears had meshed,
and meshing, had broken. Again a wild, careening thing, with no snow
banks to break the rush, the car was speeding down the steepest of the
grades like a human thing determined upon self-destruction.
A skidding curve, then a straightaway, while Barry clung to the wheel
with fingers that were white with the tightness of their grip. A second
turn, while a wheel hung over the edge, a third and--
The awful, suspended agony of space. A cry. A crash and a dull,
twisting moment of deadened Suffering. After that--blackness. Fifty
feet below the road lay a broken, crushed piece of mechanism, its
wheels still spinning, the odor of gasoline heavy about it from the
broken tank, one light still gleaming, like a blazing eye, one light that
centered upon the huddled, crumpled figure of a man who groaned
once and strove vaguely, dizzily, to rise, only to sink at last into
unconsciousness. Barry Houston had lost his fight.
How long he remained there, Barry did not know. He remembered only
the falling, dizzy moment, the second or so of horrible, racking
suspense, when, breathless, unable to move, he watched the twisting
rebound of the machine from which he had been thrown and sought to
evade it as it settled, metal crunching against metal, for the last time.
After that had come agonized hours in which he knew neither
wakefulness nor the quiet of total unconsciousness. Then--

Vaguely, as from far away, he heard a voice,--the sort of a voice that
spelled softness and gentleness. Something touched his forehead and
stroked it, with the caress that only a woman's hand can give. He
moved slightly, with the knowledge that he lay no longer upon the
rocky roughness of a mountain side, but upon the softness of a bed. A
pillow was beneath his head. Warm blankets covered him. The hand
again lingered on his forehead and was drawn away. A moment more
and slowly, wearily, Barry Houston opened his eyes.
It was the room of a mountain cabin, with its skiis and snowshoes; with
its rough chinkings in the interstices of the logs which formed the
mainstay of the house, with its four-paned windows, with its
uncouthness, yet with its comfort. Barry noticed none of this. His eyes
had centered upon the form of a girl standing beside the little window,
where evidently she had gone from his bedside.
Fair-haired she was, though Barry did not notice it. Small of build and
slight, yet vibrant with the health and vigor that is typical of those who
live in the open places. And there was a piquant something about her
too; just enough of an upturned little nose to denote the fact that there
was spirit and independence in her being; dark blue eyes that snapped
even as darker eyes snapped, as she stood, half turned, looking out the
window, watching with evident eagerness the approach of some one
Barry could not see. The lips carried a half-smile of anticipation. Barry
felt the instinctive urge to call to her, to raise himself--
He winced with a sudden pain, a sharp, yet aching throb of agony
which involuntarily closed his eyes and clenched tight his teeth until it
should pass. When he looked again, she was gone, and the opening of a
door in the next room told him where. Almost wondering, he turned his
eyes then toward the blankets