old--bitterly cold--like the bergs on the Arctic seas, to which it had
but recently said farewell.

Snow, fine as dust and sharp as needles, was caught up bodily by the
wind in great masses--here in snaky coils, there in whirling eddies,
elsewhere in rolling clouds; but these had barely time to assume
indefinite forms when they were furiously scattered and swept away as by
the besom of destruction, while earth and sky commingled in a smother of
whitey-grey.

All the demons of the Far North seemed to have taken an outside passage
on that blizzard, so tremendous was the roaring and shrieking, while the
writhing of tormented snow-drifts suggested powerfully the madness of
agony.

Two white and ghostly pillars moved slowly but steadily through all this
hurly-burly in a straight line. One of the pillars was short and broad;
the other was tall and stately. Both were very solid--agreeably so,
when contrasted with surrounding chaos. Suddenly the two pillars
stopped--though the gale did not.

Said the short pillar to the tall one--

"Taniel Tavidson, if we will not get to the Settlement this night; it
iss my belief that every one o' them will perish."

"Fergus," replied the tall pillar, sternly, "they shall _not_ perish if
I can help it. At all events, if they do, I shall die in the attempt to
save them. Come on."

Daniel Davidson became less like a white pillar as he spoke, and more
like a man, by reason of his shaking a good deal of the snow off his
stalwart person. Fergus McKay followed his comrade's example, and
revealed the fact--for a few minutes--that beneath the snow-mask there
stood a young man with a beaming countenance of fiery red, the flaming
character of which, however, was relieved by an expression of ineffable
good-humour.

The two men resumed their march over the dreary plain in silence.
Indeed, conversation in the circumstances was out of the question. The
brief remarks that had been made when they paused to recover breath were
howled at each other while they stood face to face.

The nature of the storm was such that the gale seemed to rush at the
travellers from all quarters at once--including above and below. Men of
less vigour and resolution would have been choked by it; but men who
don't believe in choking, and have thick necks, powerful frames, vast
experience, and indomitable wills are not easily choked!

"It blows hard--whatever," muttered Fergus to himself, with that
prolonged empha