ome upon the trace of
another wayfarer, was checked by the gloomy idea that some impassable
drift must bar the way.

The other sleigh was a rough wooden platform on runners. Upon it a man,
wrapped in a ragged buffalo-skin, lay prostrate. The Englishman jumped
to the ground and waded till he could lay his hand upon the recumbent
figure.

At the touch the man jumped fiercely, and shook himself from sleep.
Warm, luxurious sleep, only that, seemed to have enthralled him. His
cheeks were red, his aquiline nose, red also, suggested some amount of
strong drink; but his black eyes were bright, showing that the senses
were wholly alive. He looked defiant, inquiring. He was a
French-Canadian, apparently a _habitant_, but he understood the English
questions addressed to him. The curious thing was that he seemed to have
no reason for stopping. When he had with difficulty made way for the
gentleman to pass him on the road, he followed slowly, as it seemed
reluctantly. A mile farther on the Englishman, now far in front,
suspected that the other had again stopped, and wondered much. The man's
face had impressed him; the high cheek bones, the aquiline nose, the
clearness of the eye and complexion--these had not expressed dull folly.

Now the Englishman came to another cross road, wider but more deeply
drifted than the track he was on. He turned into it and ploughed the
drifts. When he reached the shore, where the land undulated, the drifts
were still deeper. There were no trees here; he could see no house;
there was hardly any evidence, except the evergreen branches stuck in
the sides, that the road had ever been trodden. The March dusk had now
fallen, yet not darkly. The full moon was beyond the clouds, and
whatever wave of light came from declining day or rising night was held
in by, and reflected softly from, the storm of pearl. After some debate
he turned back to the lake and his former road. It must lead somewhere;
he pressed steadily on toward the western end of the lake.

The western shore was level; he hardly knew when he was upon the land.
The glimmering night blinded the traveller; no ray of candle light was
in sight. He began to think that he was destined to see his horse slowly
buried, and himself to fight, as long as might be, a losing battle with
the fiends of the air.

At last the plodding pony stopped again resolutely. Long lines of
Lombardy poplars here met the road. They were but as the ghosts of
trees; their st