They passed its end--a broken, rattling end, that trailed and swept back and forth in the wind.
"It's the chicken corral," cried Sam, "an' it's down! They've been burnin'-- " "Go on! go on--hurry!" shouted Franklin, bending down his head so that the gale might not quite rob him of his breath, and Sam urged on the now willing horses.
They came to the sod barn, and here they left the team that had saved them, not pausing to take them from the harness.

They crept to the low and white-banked wall in which showed two windows, glazed with frost.
They could not see the chimney plainly, but it carried no smell of smoke.

The stairway leading down to the door of the dugout was missing, the excavation which held it was drifted full of snow, and the snow bore no track of human foot.

All was white and silent.

It might have been a vault far in the frozen northern sea.
Franklin burst open the door, and they both went in, half pausing.
There was that which might well give them pause.