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Updated: June 21, 2025
They came out upon its farthest fringe; and below them lay, white and bare, and sparkling in the moonlight, the frozen, snow-laden plateau of the lake. It was a weirdly beautiful scene which lay spread like a panorama before them in the winter moonlight; but they had no time to think of that now.
But though all picturesqueness was given over to utility, there was a sense of homeliness to the traveler after the stormy passage of the North Pacific. Blackrock crouched under the frowning ramparts of hills which barred the progress of the waters. It was dwarfed, and rendered even more desolate, by the sterile snow-laden crags with which it was crowded.
The rigors of the day's travel were constantly increasing. The wet snow steaming on their sides sapped the vitality of the horses; to keep them at a fair pace required a constant stream of nervous energy on the part of their riders. Virginia found it almost impossible to dodge the snow-laden branches.
She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a waning moon just dipping to the western fells; the clouds were upfurling; and only the last echoes of the gale were dying through the bare, snow-laden trees that fringed the stream. It was four o'clock. Six hours, since the rescue party had started.
They thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken whatever memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her brother and sister's departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They little knew how cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation might have overwhelmed her mind as her eye fell on those accursed walls, peering from their bower of snow-laden, pines.
All through Fort Rouge, lying among its snow-laden trees, across the frost-bound Assiniboine, all through the Hudson's Bay Reserve, there was no sign of life, for it was long past midnight. Even Main Street, that most splendid of all Canadian thoroughfares, lay white and spotless and, for the most part, in silence.
It was not an oil-burner, nor was it anywhere near as large a locomotive as the one that pulled the train. Rearward they could scarcely mark the roadbed, so drifted over was it. Fences and other landmarks were completely buried. The bending telegraph poles, weighted by the pull of snow-laden wires, was all that marked the right of way through the glen. "What a sight!" gasped Betty.
Then, like God, came a beautiful stillness and the sun. She opened the door on the fourth morning and saw, above the fresh, soft, ascending dazzle of the drift, a sky that laughed in azure, the green, snow-laden firs, a white and purple peak. She spread out her hands to feel the sun and found it warm. She held it like a friendly hand. She forced herself that day to shovel, to sweep, even to eat.
The only sounds are the strident puffs of jets of steam, the dull rumbling of machinery, and the sudden rattle of ironwork lowered from the carts to the pavement. But on Sundays the factories do not work, and the district then falls into death-like silence. In summer time there is but bright sunshine heating the pavement, in winter some icy snow-laden wind rushing down the lonely streets.
Some ships sailed fast on an even keel, others had to be trimmed quite one foot by the stern, and I have heard of a ship that gave her best speed on a wind when so loaded as to float a couple of inches by the head. In the distance, beyond the waste ground, and running parallel with the line of ships, a line of brown, warm-toned houses seemed bowed under snow-laden roofs.
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