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The aspect of a piece of country considerably changes in surface appearance under a heavy covering of snow where deep and extensive drifts have formed. Notwithstanding our deviations and undulating course, we made the summit of the great spur at midday. Such a scene as here opened out before us is difficult to describe.
You will see little figures picking their way along the miry roads, or ploughing through the deep drifts, cutting across the fields, all drawing to the school-house, Bub in his wammus and his cowhide boots, his cap with ear-laps, a knitted comforter about his neck, and his hands glowing in scarlet mittens; and little Sis, in a thick shawl, trudging along behind him, stepping in his tracks.
I've lost my bearings, but we're on a trail, which must lead to somewhere, at last. Stick tight to your saddle and I'll bring you through all right, ma'am." Millicent was too cold to answer. A blast that whirled the drifts up met her in the face, numbing all her faculties and rendering breathing difficult. The hand that held the bridle was stiffened into uselessness.
Heretofore I was in luck to get a time and place in which to wash them. At half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, when it was too dark to sew longer, Alma, Ricka and I went out upon the beach to meet the boys who had been gathering wood, and we walked a half mile over the rough trail of ice blocks, drifts and hummocks.
The ruined gables, the insides of which were japanned with turf-smoke, looked yet blacker contrasted with the patches of snow which had been driven against them by the wind, and with the drifts which lay around them.
Where he steps, the ground turns to rock and plants bow their heads to the earth. All the animals flee before him and hide in caves and hollow trees. The children leave their happy play and sit shivering by the wigwam fire. One day old Winter looked about him. He saw no life in field or forest. The wind raged, and the drifts almost hid the lodges of the Indians.
But, on the other hand, ever in the pauses of the rushing, ever in the watery gleams of life that broke through the clouds and drifts of the fever, Leopold sought his friend, and, finding him, shone into a brief radiance, or, missing him, gloomed back into the land of visions.
"There may be dreadful things mixed up in that fog, an' I'm scared just to think of wading into it." Even Ozma seemed to hesitate. She was silent and thoughtful for a little while, looking at the rolling drifts that were so gray and forbidding. Finally she said: "I believe this is a Mist Valley, where these moist clouds always remain, for even the sunshine above does not drive them away.
So wore autumn into winter, and the frost came, and the snow, with prodigious winds from out of the mountains: yet was not the weather so hard but that they might go forth most days, and come to no hurt if they were wary of the drifts; and forsooth needs must they go abroad to take venison for their livelihood.
But digging in the desert is very hard work, because it is very hot, and there is very little water and food. Often, too, a great wind arises and brings a sandstorm. Then the sand drifts back again to the places already cleared. It is surprising to find that there are a great many people living in this desert region of North Africa. There are three kinds of people there.