Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside her, saving the latter but losing her own.
'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind, and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.
This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious, curious people gathered.

The messenger sent to town had done his work rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park.

The boy had stopped at the station and told his story there, making the baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an accessory.
'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off so fast, as if she knew her own business.

So I just minded mine, or rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered up with snow.

It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.' This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound twice around it and tied in a hard knot.