Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Dakota Blizzard. 8] Already sage brush, scattered here and there, to- gether with cacti, resembled little hillocks, with the snow piled up against them, such of it as was not in circulation, for so wild was the howling wind that the air seemed to be one mass of flying particles of ice that lashed the face most pitilessly, and cut like needles. Their progress was dreadfully slow. Indeed, the horses could not have gone at all against the blizzard, and with it on one side suffered severely enough. Cuthbert’s mind involuntarily went back to the time when he had galloped over perhaps this same ground, pursued by the flashing, leaping fire— quite a startling contrast when compared with his present experiences, and he could hardly say which of the two evils was the greater, save that the pres- ent one always looms up more hugely. The minutes dragged into hours—they seemed ages to the boys, who were perilously near the point. of perishing. “Say, couldn’t we stop for a minute or two, just to let the blood get back into our veins?” suggested Cuthbert. “Do you know what it would mean?” “Great risk, I suppose.” “More.” “What then?” “Death. Our only hope is to push on or strike some brush.” Both boys rode on in silence. Karl could hardly see his compass to make sure of their line of flight, and his fingers were too much like lumps of ice to do duty in the way of feeling; but he had a firm conviction they were on the right road, and that the timber must surely show up soon. If, by any ill luck, he had made a mistake, it was apt to prove fatal to them. cComiclbooks C©