"
Neale listened while he was watching Allie's parted lips and
speaking eyes. A low, whining wind swept through the trees and over
the roof of the cabin.
"Thet wind says snow," declared the trapper.
Neale went outside. The wind struck him cold and keen, with a sharp
edge to it. The stars showed pale and dim through hazy atmosphere.
Assuredly there was a storm brewing. Neale returned to the fire,
shivering and holding his palms to the heat.
"Cold, you bet, with the wind rising," he said. "But, Slingerland,
suppose it does snow. Can't we go, anyhow?"
"It ain't likely. You see, it snows up hyar. Mebbe we'll be snowed
in fer a spell. An' thet valley is open down thar. In deep snow what
could we find? We'll wait an' see."
On the morrow a storm raged and all was dim through a ghostly,
whirling pall. The season of drifting snow had come, and Neale's
winter work had begun.
Five miles by short cut over the ridges curved the long survey over
which Neale must keep watch; and the going and coming were Neale's
hardest toil. It was laborsome to trudge up and down in soft snow.
That first snow of winter, however, did not last long, except in the
sheltered places. Fortunately for Neale, almost all of his section
of the survey ran over open ground. But this fact augured seriously
for his task when the dry and powdery snow of midwinter began to
fall and sweep before the wind and drift over the lee side of the
ridge.
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