especially if snow fell after the roof had been covered in, for then
no one could know if the dweller were at home. One would lie very
still, wrapped up in buffalo robes, while all the time the other
Indians would be prowling about in their war-paint, looking for
you. Or perhaps the Spaniards would be after you with their
bloodhounds, and you would get down under the snow in the forest
somewhere, and the snow would fall and fall, covering your tracks,
till nothing could be seen but a little tiny hole, melted by your
breath, through which you got fresh air. Then you would hear the
horses and the armour and the baying of the hounds; but they would
never find you, though their horses' hoofs might almost sink through
the snow to your body.

We went down to the orchard, Hugh and I, determined to build a
snow-house if the drifts were deep enough. We were not going to plunge
into a drift, and make a sort of chamber by wrestling our bodies
about, as the Indians do. We had planned to dig a square chamber in
the biggest drift we could find, and then to roof it over with an old
tarpaulin stretched upon sticks. We were going to cover the tarpaulin
with snow, in the Indian fashion, and we had planned to make a little
narrow passage, like a fox's earth, as the only doorway to the
chamber.

It was a bright, frosty morning: the sun shone, the world sparkled,
the sky was of a dazzling blue, the snow gleamed everywhere. Hoolie,
the dog, was wild with excitement. He ran from drift to drift,
snapping up mouthfuls of snow, and burrowing down sideways till he was
half buried.

There was a flower garden at one end of the orchard, and in the middle