gain, hunting on your preserves?"

"No, Miss Alice. Not this time," he replied, slowly.

"What is it then?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't like the looks of the weather."

"Do you think we're going to have another blizzard?" and there was a
note of alarm in her voice.

"I'm thinking that's what's coming," he made answer. "I never knew the
weather to act just this way before except once, and then we had the
worst storm I ever remember. That was when I was a boy, and more snow
fell in that one storm than in any three winters put together."

"Gracious! I hope that won't happen now!" cried the girl.

"So do I," went on the hunter. "And I'm going to take all precautions.
I'll get the men, and we'll pile the fodder in the barn so if we can't
get out to feed the stock they won't starve for a week, anyhow."

"Does it ever happen that you can't get out to the barns?" Alice wanted
to know.

"Indeed it does, young lady. When there is a heavy fall of snow, and the
wind blows hard, it drifts almost as high as the house. Yes, I think
we're in for a storm, and I'm going to get ready for it. Best to be on
the safe side."

A little later he and a number of his hired men, as well as some of the
picture players, were engaged in looking after the horses and cows.
Great piles of hay and grain were moved from the barns where the fodder
was kept in reserve, to the buildings where the stock were stabled.

"How about our rations?" asked Mr. Bunn, who was not of much help in
work of this sort. "Have we enough to last through a storm?"

"Well, we've got some," Mr. Macksey admitted. "But I own I would like a
little better stock in the Lodge. I counted on some supplies coming in
to-day; but they haven't arrived. We'll have to do the best we can."

"What is all the excitement about, Alice?" asked Ruth as she came out to
join her sister on the porch.

"A big storm coming, Mr. Macksey says. They're getting ready for it. I
want to see it!"

"Oh, Alice. Suppose it should be a blizzard!"

"Well, I want to see it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it;
but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically
philosophical way.

There was a curious humming in the air, as though someone, a great way
off, were moaning in pain. It did not seem to be the wind, and yet it
was like the sigh of a breeze. But the gaunt-limbed trees did not bow
before this strange blast.

The air, too, had a bite and tingle to it as though