During the night the cold grew intense, and several times I was
startled out of my sleep by a frosty report from the ice and snow on
the roof that reminded one of the firing of a cannon.

In the morning when the geese began screeching in the lower hall, I
thought it was time to get up, and was soon in the very act of pulling
off a certain garment over my head when one of the half-breed
maids--the red-headed one whose hair Mr. Spear had cut off with the
horse clippers--intruded herself into my room to see if I were going to
be down in time for breakfast, and I had to drop behind the foot of the
bed.

At breakfast, the first course was oatmeal porridge; the second,
"Son-in-law"; the third, fried bacon, toast, and tea; after which we
all put on our wraps for our five-mile trip across God's Lake to Fort
Consolation. Everyone went, maids, chore-boy, and all, and everyone
made the trip on snowshoes--all save the trader's wife, who rode in
state, in a carriole, hauled by a tandem train of four dogs.


THE NEW YEAR'S DANCE

It was a beautiful sunny day and the air was very still; and though the
snow was wind-packed and hard, the footing was very tiresome, for the
whole surface of the lake was just one endless mass of hard-packed
snowdrifts that represented nothing so much as a great, stormy,
white-capped sea that had been instantly congealed. And for us it was
just up and down, in and out, up and down, in and out, all the way
over. These solid white waves, however, proved one thing, and that was
the truth of Oo-koo-hoo's woodcraft; for, just as he had previously