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The boys made a winding tunnel through the snow-drifts up to the door of the hut, and Nature did the rest, burying the hut in snow until its very existence was unsuspected by strangers, though it may be unusual to see clouds of wood-smoke issuing from an apparent snow-drift.

But now he was more inclined to hear Rudy's adventures while hunting and travelling, and to listen to his descriptions of the difficulties the chamois-hunter has to overcome on the mountain-tops, or of the dangerous snow-drifts which the wind and weather cause to cling to the edges of the rocks, or to lie in the form of a frail bridge over the abyss beneath.

The "stand" of the former was a water-tight box of pine, painted white, and about six feet square by four deep, which was quickly sunk into the snow-covered ice to about half its depth; the snow and ice removed by the shovel, being afterwards piled against the sides, beaten hard and smooth, and finally cemented by the use of water, which in a few moments froze the whole into the semblance of one of the thousands of hummocks, which marked the presence of crusted snow-drifts on the level ice.

The moonlight was very full and brilliant, the trees were crooked in hard lines, and the snow-drifts crested with white lights of ice; there was no softening of spring in anything, but the young man felt within him one of those flooding stirs of the spirit which every spring faintly symbolizes.

It was at this time that Talbot stood looking out at its rugged edges and the snow-drifts turning grey as the sunlight left them, and listening with a sort of mechanical tension to the unbroken and oppressive stillness round him, when his eye caught sight of a man's figure, moving slowly towards the house.

Ezekiel closed his eyes, and he saw two mountains, and a valley between the mountains. That valley looked as though there had been a great battle there, and a whole army had been slain, and they had been unburied; and the heat of the land, and the vultures coming there, soon the bones were exposed to the sun, and they looked like thousands of snow-drifts all through the valley.

On the 6th of March, having cured sufficient meat, the party resumed their march, and moved on with comparative ease, excepting where they had to make their way through snow-drifts which had been piled up by the wind. On the 11th, a small cloud of smoke was observed rising in a deep part of the defile. An encampment was instantly formed and scouts were sent out to reconnoitre.

Here my unprotected nose began to freeze again, and my time, until we reached Shestakóva, was about equally divided between rubbing that troublesome feature with one hand, holding on with the other, and picking myself up out of snow-drifts with both. The only satisfaction I had was in seeing the state of exasperation to which the Major was reduced by the stupidity and ugliness of his driver.

"I whirled the snow in the snow storms, and raised the snow-drifts. The snow lay like a sea high around the vessel. I let it hear my voice, and know what a tempest can say. I knew if I exerted myself it would get some of the knowledge other ships have.

He undid the cords and tried to get away from the big sledge, but it was no use, his little sledge stuck fast, and on they rushed, faster than the wind. He shouted aloud, but nobody heard him, and the sledge tore on through the snow-drifts. Every now and then it gave a bound, as if they were jumping over hedges and ditches.