A Countess from Canada | Page 7

the most dismal manner until they were well on their way. The noise got on Katherine's nerves to such an extent that she was tempted to use her whip to the dog, and only refrained because it seemed so cruel to thrash a creature for just being miserable. To cheer the animals for the heavy work before them, she talked to them as if they were human beings, encouraging them so much that they took the first ten miles at a tremendous rate, following so close on the track of the first sledge that presently 'Duke Radford held up his hand as a signal for stopping, then turned round to expostulate in a peevish tone: "What do you mean by letting the dogs wear themselves out at such a rate? We shall have one of them dropping exhausted presently, and then we shall be in a nice fix."
"I haven't used the whip once, Father, but I thought it was better to get them on as fast as I could, for I have felt and seen ever so many snowflakes in the last half-hour," Katherine said penitently.
'Duke Radford turned his face rather anxiously windward, and was considerably worried to find that a few small snowflakes came dancing slowly down, and that the slight draught of the morning was changing to a raw, cold wind from off the water.
"It is a fall coming, and by the look of it, it may be heavy. You had better keep the dogs coming as fast as you can. But stop if I throw up my hand, or you will be running me down."
"Shall we change places for a time?" asked Katherine. "I am not a bit tired, but you look just worn out."
"No, no, I can't have you dragging a sledge. But be careful and keep the dogs from rushing down the slopes and overrunning me," he answered, then started forward again.
The flakes were falling faster now, but they were so fine that they would have scarcely counted had it not been for the number of them. At the end of the next half-hour the fall was like a fog of whirling atoms, and the travellers looked like moving snow figures. The dogs were still running well, and Katherine found it hard work to keep them back, especially on the slopes, where they would persist in trying to make rushes, so getting thoroughly out of hand. She was keeping them back down one long bad slope which abounded in pitfalls, when to her horror she heard her father cry out, then saw him and his sledge disappear, shooting into a whirling smother of snow.
[Illustration: 'Duke Radford meets with an accident]
With a sharp order to the dogs to stop, which they promptly obeyed by dropping in four panting heaps on the snow, she went forward alone to see what had happened to her father. It was a simple enough accident, and one that had to be constantly guarded against in drawing a sledge when travelling on snowshoes. In going down the slope the sledge had travelled proportionally faster than the man, and, catching against the framework of one of the snowshoes, had flung him with tremendous force between two trees. The trees, which were really two shoots from one root, grew so close together that when 'Duke Radford was pitched in between them he was wedged fast by the force of the impact, while the sledge, coming on behind, bounded on to his prostrate body. He groaned when Katherine dragged the sledge away, and cried out with the pain when she tried to help him out.
"Did it hurt you so badly? Oh, I am sorry! But I will be more careful next time," she said; and, stepping carefully backwards after that first vain attempt, she slipped her feet clear of the snowshoes and went closer to the tree, so that she might try to lift him out of the fork by sheer strength of arm. But the snow was so soft that she sank in over her ankles, going deeper and deeper with every attempt which she made to wriggle herself free.
"This won't do," she said sharply. "I won't be long, Father dear, but I must pack the snow a bit before I can get firm standing ground."
Slipping her father's snowshoes, one of which was broken, from his feet, she took the broken part and proceeded to beat the snow firm all round the trees. This took perhaps ten minutes, although she worked so hard that she perspired despite the cold. The snow was firm now; she could stand without sinking, and going round in front of her father she exerted all her strength and lifted him up a little. He was bleeding from a wound on his face, and seemed to be quite dazed.
"Can you