you've got the wust half the road before yer now. Thur's a
hill a mile an' a half long, jest out here a little ways. You'll have to
break yer own roads, I reckon; there's nothin' else goin' along to-day.
Storm's gittin' wuss.'

We looked dubiously at each other, and he, probably observing my anxious
countenance, endeavored to reassure us by saying, in an uncertain tone,
'But I _rayther_ guess you'll git through.'

We were soon off again on the next stage, which was to be twenty-four
miles, without any stopping-place or village between. We ascended many
hills, in fact there seemed to be no going down to any of them; but when
the horses came to a dead halt, and the coach began to slip backward,
and the driver called out, 'I guess, gentlemen, you'll hev to git out
here for a spell,' we knew we had come to the hill 'a mile an' a half
long.' I kept my place, for my weight was too inconsiderable to make
much difference. The Englishman, taking hold of the coach, helped the
horses to start again with a vigorous push, and then the three
passengers went plunging through the snow till the driver stopped and
took them in again, quite out of breath.

We were now in the depths of the forest, many miles from any house.
Occasionally we passed a deserted lumberman's hut by the wayside, and
discussed the liability of a breakdown or an overturn in that wild
region.

The white-headed, square-faced stumps which abounded in the partially
cleared tracts, peered in upon us for mile after mile with haunting
repetition.

The trees were heavily laden with snow, which they shook down upon us as
we brushed along beneath their low-bending branches. In the dim twilight
they assumed every variety of fanciful form. There were gaunt old trees,
with gnarled and twisted branches, outstretched like arms in deadly
Laocoon-like struggle with the writhing winds and storms; there were
delicate birches, each slender twig bearing its feathery burden; and
there were spruces and hemlocks, regal in snowy splendor. It lay upon
them in heavy masses, and gave their bending boughs a still more
graceful dip. There was something which harmonized with my grief in the
silent snow and the drooping trees. They sank beneath the snow as the
human heart sinks beneath its burden of sorrow. Yet it fell gently and
beautifully upon them, as affliction falls from the hand of our Father,
'who chasteneth whom he loveth.' One tree, which bent completely over in
a perfect abandon