We were pretty busy with our horses,
however, for it is not easy to manage so many halters.
The air was very frosty and sharp in the early morning; but when the sun
came up from a mild, yellow, eastern sky, we felt a little warmer. Not a
breath of wind stirred the tree tops. The leaves had already fallen, and
lay in a dense, damp carpet throughout the forest; the song birds had
gone, and the woods seemed utterly quiet. When a red squirrel
"chickered" at a distance, or when a partridge whirred up, the sound
fell startlingly loud on the air.
There was, indeed, something almost ominous in the stillness of the
morning. As we entered the spruce woods beyond the bushy clearing of the
Old Slave's Farm, Addison cast his eye southward, and remarked that
there was a "snow bank" rising in the sky. Turning, we saw a long,
leaden, indeterminate cloud. It was then about nine o'clock in the
morning.
By ten o'clock the cloud had hidden the sun, and by noon the entire sky
had grown dark. The first breath of the oncoming storm stirred the
trees, and we felt a piercing chill in the air. Then fine "spits" of
snow began to fall.
"It's coming," Addison said; "but I guess we can get up to camp.
Pages:
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348