olation. How could they live in this endless
desert of snow? What could they find to eat? Where could they find water
to drink? He asked Wabi these questions after they had returned to the
cabin.

"Just now, if you traveled from here to the end of this storm zone you
wouldn't find a living four-legged creature," said Wabigoon. "Every
moose in this country, every deer and caribou, every fox and wolf, is
buried in the snow. And as the snow falls deeper about them the warmer
and more comfortable do they become, so that even as the blizzard
increases in fury the kind Creator makes it easier for them to bear.
When the storm ceases the wilderness will awaken into life again. The
moose and deer and caribou will rise from their snow-beds and begin to
eat the boughs of trees and saplings; a crust will have formed on the
snow, and all the smaller animals, like foxes, lynx and wolves, will
begin to travel again, and to prey upon others for food. Until they find
running water again snow and ice take the place of liquid drink; warm
caverns dug in the snow give refuge in place of thick swamp moss and
brush and leaves. All the big animals, like moose, deer and caribou,
will soon make 'yards' for themselves by trampling down large areas of
snow, and in these yards they will gather in big herds, eating their way
through the forests, fighting the wolves and waiting for spring. Oh,
life isn't altogether bad for the animals in a deep winter like this!"

Until noon the hunters were busy cleaning away the snow from the cabin
door. As the day advanced the blizzard increased in its fury, until,
with the approach of night, it became impossible for the hunters to
expose themselves to it. For three days the storm continued with only
intermittent lulls, but with the dawn of the fourth day the sky was
again cloudless, and the sun rose with a blinding effulgence. Rod now
found himself suffering from that sure affliction of every tenderfoot in
the far North--snow-blindness. For only a few minutes at a time could he
stand the dazzling reflections of the snow-waste where nothing but
white, flashing, scintillating white, seemingly a vast sea of burning
electric points in the sunlight, met his aching eyes. On the second day
after the storm, while Wabi was still inuring Rod to the changed world
and teaching him how to accustom his eyes to it gradually, Mukoki left
the cabin to follow the chasm in his search for the first waterfall.

That same day Wabi b