is sorry. The leaves are nearly gone, and the fat old bears are
slouching down from the high places to curl up in the holes, and the
deer are moving down into the valleys, and pretty soon the hills will
crawl under white blankets and go to sleep. And we shall have to do the
same. We shall be shut in before you know it, snowed in, frozen in, like
the bears. But the winter--it can't take you from me."

"There, there!" But she could not finish. She flashed a helpless smile
at him and fled indoors. He went after her, crying that winter was upon
them.

And then, all in a day and a night, winter came. The wind fell to an
ominous hush one midday, and a leaden quiet lay over the hills. Blurred
masses of cloud rose slowly above the peaks, shaping themselves with
ponderous sloth. Below these a white mist formed. Then one tiny snow
crystal fell. It was followed presently by another, and then by more,
floating down with unhurried ease. Meaningless wisps they seemed,
fugitive bits of wool, perhaps, from a sheep losing its fleece in some
nearby shearing pen. More of them came with the same slow, loitering
grace, as if they would lull suspicion of the fury they heralded.

By night the storm had shut off the hills so that the cabin might have
been set in a plain, for all the eye could see. The flakes no longer
came saunteringly, but swiftly now, in a slant of honest fervor, frankly
threatening.

By morning the land was muffled in white. The sun shone pale and cold
through the mist, and the wind began a game with its new plaything,
still light and dry, and quick to dance to any piping. Spruce and
hemlock seemed to have darkened their green, and their arms drooped
wearily under the white burdens they bore. The second day's fall buried
their lowest branches so that not even the circle of bare earth was left
about them.

Inside the cabin they sought the peace of the earth under its cover, the
trustful repose of the live things sleeping there. The days sped by
almost unmarked. Scarcely ever were they certain of the day of week or
month, especially after Ben forgot to mark his calendar on the days he
and Ewing devoted to getting deer for their winter's meat. There were
but opinions as to the date after that.

Ben, after his work with the stock each morning, hibernated gracefully
in a chair by the kitchen stove, sleeping with excited groans, like a
dreaming dog. Or, awake, he stared at the wall with dulled eyes. At
times he would touch