last
week on the way to Jesse's ranch. The teamster was Iron Dale. So far I
had wondered whether my name was changing letter by letter from Madame
Scotson into Mrs. Grumble, but now the scent of the pines brought ease
of mind, and in the great calm of the wilderness one is ashamed to fret.

Our next march brought us rather late for the midday dinner to
Fifty-Nine Mile House, which marks the summit of the long climb from
Ashcroft to the edge of the black pines. The light was beginning to wane
when we set out into that land of silent menace, where black forests
cast blue shadows over deathly snow, and the cold was that of the space
between the stars. Once we had to pull up to adjust a trace, and in that
instant the trees seemed suddenly to have paused from dreadful motion. A
snow-covered boulder faced us as though in challenge: "You think I
moved?" A deadfall log seemed to ask us: "Did I moan?" A hollow tree
became rigid as though it had been swaying, a gaunt pine leaned as
though stopped in the act of falling upon our sleigh. All of them, alert
and full of menace, watched us. The trees were dead, the water was all
frozen, the snow was but a shroud which seemed to lift and creep. What
were we doing here in the land of the dead? The shadows closed upon us,
a mist rose, flooding over us, and far off the cold split a tree asunder
with loud report as of some minute gun.

We drove on, freezing, and right glad I was to be welcomed with all the
ruddy warmth and kindly cheer of Eighty Mile House. There we had tea,
and secured fresh horses for the last stage of our journey. I learned
also that the driver intrusted by the Hudson's Bay Company with
provisions for Hundred Mile House had gone off with the team, leaving
his sleigh still loaded in Captain Taylor's yard.

The malign bush seemed cowed by sheer immensity of glittering starlight
as we drove on. Only once I ventured to speak, asking Mr. Eure to look
out for Ninety-Nine Mile House. Horses accustomed to bait there would
try to stop. I did not want to stop.

He nodded assent, and, crouched down beside him, I waited until a brave
red warmth shone out across the snow from all the lighted windows of
Spite House. Mr. Eure lashed his horses, and in a moment more we had
passed into the night again. Presently we crossed the little shaky
bridge over Hundred Mile Creek, then swung to the left into Captain
Taylor's yard. I could see on the right the loom of the old barns, on
the lef