able, went out into
the living room, glanced casually over that once more, and so to the
outside where the snow crisped under his feet now that the sun had
withdrawn behind the hills. About the slashed area where the cedars
had fallen, over stumps and broken branches and the low roof of the
cabin, the virgin snow laid its softening whiteness, and the tall
trees enclosed the spot with living green. A hidden squirrel broke out
with brisk scolding, a small chirruping voice in a great silence. Here
men had lived and worked and gone their way again. The forest remained
as it was before. The thickets would soon arise to conceal man's
handiwork.

Hollister shook off this fleeting impression of man's impermanence,
and turned downhill lest dark catch him in the heavy timber and make
him lose his way.

CHAPTER V

A wind began to sigh among the trees as Hollister made his way
downhill. Over his evening fire he heard it grow to a lusty gale that
filled the valley all night with moaning noises. Fierce gusts
scattered the ashes of his fire and fluttered the walls of his tent as
though some strong-lunged giant were huffing and puffing to blow his
house down. At daylight the wind died. A sky banked solid with clouds
began to empty upon the land a steady downpour of rain. All through
the woods the sodden foliage dripped heavily. The snow melted, pouring
muddy cataracts out of each gully, making tiny cascades over the edge
of every cliff. Snowbanks slipped their hold on steep hillsides high
on the north valley wall. They gathered way and came roaring down out
of places hidden in the mist. Hollister could hear these slides
thundering like distant artillery. Watching that grim facade across
the river he saw, once or twice during the day, those masses plunge
and leap, ten thousand tons of ice and snow and rock and crushed
timber shooting over ledge and precipice to end with fearful crashing
and rumbling in the depth of a steep-walled gorge.

He was tied to his camp. He could not stir abroad without more
discomfort than he cared to undergo. Every bush, every bough, would
precipitate upon him showers of drops at the slightest touch. He sat
by his fire in the mouth of the tent and smoked and thought of the
comfortable cabin up in the cedar hollow, and of Doris Cleveland's
books. He began by reflecting that he might have brought one down to
read. He ended before nightfall of a dull, rain-sodden day with a
resolution to move up the