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Some of these low mats of spruce have stems 5 inches through. They must be fully 100 years old. A tall, dead, white spruce at the camp was 30 feet high and 11 inches in diameter at 4 feet from the ground. Its 190 rings were hard to count, they were so thin.
Under the spruce by the hedgerow, the curé in the three-cornered hat reading his breviary had lost his right foot, and the very plaster, scaling off with the frost, had left white scabs on his face. Then she went up again, shut her door, put on coals, and fainting with the heat of the hearth, felt her boredom weigh more heavily than ever.
They were in fitting surroundings, their color inexpressibly vivid against the snow, and Ben's heart warmed and thumped in his breast at the sight. But the trail descended at last into the great valley of the Yuga. Mile after mile, it seemed to them, they went down, leaving the snow, leaving the open glades, into the dark, still glens of spruce. At last they paused on the river bank.
When he gathered his dazed wits and stood up on his half frozen legs he found himself in a curious place. He had rolled completely into a wigwam-shaped shelter of spruce boughs and sticks, and strong in his nostrils was the SMELL OF MEAT. He found the meat not more than a foot from the end of his nose.
Lisbeth meant to be very neat and tidy, but she should have let her bed air longer before making it! The sun had just risen above the highest spruce tops over the edge of the eastern hills, and the light was flooding the sides of the valley like a waterfall. In the meadows and on the sloping fields the sunbeams quivered in the dew.
I see why you're just the man to help her in doing a great, good work, and making of us all the loyalest workmen that ever lived. Don't you never give her up, sir, never!" "Not if there are older claimants on the field?" "But are there?" "One has come a spruce young naval officer no, I'll be fair; a fine, handsome, well-bred fellow, every inch a man in appearance. And she corresponds with him."
The air he breathed was softer, he fancied, yet it was still heavy with the stinging shot of blizzard; and where yesterday he had seen only the smothering chaos of twisted spruce and piled up snow, there was now as the pale day broadened his old wonderland of savage beauty, awaiting only a flash of sunlight to transform it into the pure glory of a thing indescribable.
There was one chance in twenty that the colt would come within his reach, and it did. He made a single lunge and caught it by the ear. For a moment after that his heart turned sick. Under the added strain the dead spruce sagged down with a warning crack. But it held, and Aldous hung to his grip on the ear. Foot by foot he wormed his way back, until at last he had dragged the little animal ashore.
It made a dark blot on the pale glimmer of the snow and the white patch of the face was faintly distinguishable in the fading light. The spruce tops stirred, shaking down loose snow, which fell with a soft patter, and the wind blew trails of it about. "I can find nothing wrong," Lane said at last.
As he crouched and waited, it came to him that he had forgotten to drink his spruce tea. The only other thought in his mind was the possibility of John Thompson changing his mind and not travelling Christmas Day. Dawn broke and merged into day. It was cold and clear. Sixty below zero was Morganson's estimate of the frost. Not a breath stirred the chill Arctic quiet.
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