CHAPTER XI

THE LETTER IN THE CAIRN


In Labrador September is the pleasantest month of the year. It is a
period of calm when fogs and mists and cold dreary rains, so frequent
during July and the early half of August, are past, and Nature holds
her breath before launching upon the world the bitter blasts and
blizzards and awful cold of a sub-arctic winter. There are days and
days together when the azure of the sky remains unmarred by clouds,
and the sun shines uninterruptedly. The air, brilliantly transparent,
carries a twang of frost. Evening is bathed in an effulgence of
colour. The sky flames in startling reds and yellows blending into
opals and turquoise, with the shadowy hills lying in a purple haze in
the west.

Then comes night and the aurora. Wavering fingers of light steal up
from the northern horizon. Higher and higher they climb until they
have reached and crossed the zenith. From the north they spread to the
east and to the west until the whole sky is aflame with shimmering
fire of marvellous changing colours varying from darkest purple to
dazzling white.

The dark green of the spruce and balsam forests is splotched with
golden yellow where the magic touch of the frost king has laid his
fingers and worked a miracle upon groves of tamaracks. The leaves of
the aspen and white birch have fallen, and the flowers have faded.