--was frozen over for a dozen miles east and
west and thirty north and south; and that had not happened in close to a
score of years. Men were freighting across to the islands with heavy
teams. Automobiles had beaten a rough road along the course the steamers
took in summer. A man who had ventured to stock one of the lower islands
with foxes for the sake of their fur, counting on the water to hold them
prisoners, had gone bankrupt when his stock in trade escaped across the
ice. Bitterly cold and steadily cold, and deep snow lay upon the hills,
blue-white in the distance. The evergreens were blue-black blotches on
this whiteness. The birches, almost indistinguishable, were like trees
in camouflage. To me the hills are never so grand as in this winter coat
they wear. It is easy to believe that a brooding God dwells upon them. I
wondered as I ploughed my way down to Hazen Kinch's farm whether God did
indeed dwell among these hills; and I wondered what He thought of Hazen
Kinch.

This was no new matter of thought with me. I had given some thought to
Hazen in the past. I was interested in the man and in that which should
come to him. He was, it seemed to me, a problem in fundamental ethics;
he was, as matters stood, a demonstration of the essential uprightness
of things as they are. The biologist would have called him a sport, a
deviation from type, a violation of all the proper laws of life. That
such a man should live and grow great and prosper was not fitting; in a
well-regulated world it could not be. Yet Hazen Kinch did live; he had
grown--in his small way--great; and by our lights he had prospered.
Therefore I watched him. There was about the man the fascination which
clothes a tight-rope walker above Niagara; an aeronaut in the midst of
the nose dive. The spectator stares with half-caught breath, afraid to
see and afraid to miss seeing the ultimate catastrophe. Sometimes I
wondered whether Hazen Kinch suspected this attitude on my part. It was
not impossible. There was a cynical courage in the man; it might have
amused him. Certainly I was the only man who had in any degree his
confidence.

I have said there was not another within forty miles whom he would have
given a lift to town; I doubt if there was another man anywhere for whom
he would have done this small favour.

He seemed to find a mocking sort of pleasure in my company.

When I came to his house he was in the barn harnessing his mare to the
sleigh. The m