breath, and pausing for a
moment to catch it, noted for the first time the extreme bitterness of
the cold. It stung the face like insects. "Woof!" he said. "And now for
lost time."

Again he stepped out, but with each step the snow became deeper, and
presently he floundered in to his waist. "Must be a ditch!" he said,
turning a little to the right and exclaiming, "Thought so!" as the
wading got shallower. Whereupon he stepped into a deep hole and fell.
After plunging and plowing about, it was brought home to him that he had
lost the path. Even at that the difficulty remained one of hard walking
alone, for he had been familiar with that country since childhood,
and knew the precise direction in which it was necessary for him to
locomote. It was a pity that the only structure in the vicinity was an
ancient and deserted house,--it lay just off there,--as he should have
liked to have warmed himself by a good fire before going farther. He
remembered that there were a partly preserved stove in the deserted
house, broken laths, and naily boards, and swathes of curious old
wall-papers, layer upon layer, which, dampening and rotting from the
wall, hung raggedly down. He had once explored the house with Margaret,
and it seemed almost wise to go to the place and make a fire. But on
account of the delay involved and the approach of darkness, he
discarded the notion, and, a little impatient at being badly used by a
neighborhood he knew so well, struggled on.

"Troubles," he said, "what sort of a storm is this anyway? Did you ever
see anything quite like it round here? Because I never did. It must
be like those things they have out West, when millions of poor little
baa-sheeps and horses and cattles freeze to death. I'd hate to be a
horse out in this, but I wish I had one. I--"

If, as a child, you have ever slipped, though only an inch, while
climbing over roofs, you will know that sudden, stabbing, sinking
feeling that came to Aladdin and stopped the beating of his heart by the
hairbreadth of a second. He had been proceeding chin on breast, and head
bent against the wind, or he would have seen it before, for it was a
notable landmark in that part of the world, and showed him that he had
been making way, not toward his destination, but toward the wilderness.

He gazed up at the great black blasted pine, its waist the height of a
tall tree, and its two lonely lightning-scathed and white arms stretched
out like a malediction; and