from her dreams of pressing the magic
button on a mountain-top, of watching
the Thunder Bird tear, tear away moonward,
switching its long tail of light, the
whole thing seemed an illusion--the
wrong side of her dream.

It was as if she had soared with that
monster rocket, Toandoah's invention,
outside the earth's atmosphere, were being
hurled about in the horrible vacuum of
space, its unplumbed heart of cold, so far--so annihilatingly far below the balmy
zero point of old Mother Earth on a
February day when two light-hearted girls
were going skiing.

She was growing numb.

In vain did her waterproof wind-jacket,
the ski-runner's belted jacket of thin and
trusty silk, defend, like a faithful wing--a
warm, conscious wing--the upper
part of her body.

The deadly water was encroaching,
clasping her waist with an icy girdle,--stealing
under it, even to her armpits.

[[33]]

p032 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p033w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p034

v?