hings
around. And Nature, with her utter lack of sentiment, is after all the
only real soother of anguished nerves. With my mind in the state it was
in, the drive would indeed have been nothing less than torture, had I
not felt, sometimes even against my will, mostly without at any rate
consciously yielding to it, the influence of that merriest of all winter
sights which surrounded me.

The fresh fall of snow, which had come over night, was exceedingly
slight. It had come down softly, floatingly, with all the winds of
the prairies hushed, every flake consisting of one or two large, flat
crystals only, which, on account of the nearly saturated air, had
gone on growing by condensation till they touched the ground. Such a
condition of the atmosphere never holds out in a prolonged snowfall,
may it come down ever so soft-footedly; the first half hour exhausts the
moisture content of the air. After that the crystals are the ordinary,
small, six-armed "stars" which bunch together into flakes. But if the
snowfall is very slight, the moisture content of the lower air sometimes
is not exhausted before it stops; those large crystals remain at the
surface and are not buried out of sight by the later fall. These large,
coarse, slablike crystals reflect as well as refract the light of the
sun. There is not merely the sparkle and glitter, but also the colour
play. Facing north, you see only glittering points of white light; but,
facing the sun, you see every colour of the rainbow, and you see it
with that coquettish, sudden flash which snow shares only with the most
precious of stones.

Through such a landscape covered with the thinnest possible sheet of
the white glitter we sped. A few times, in heavier snow, the horses were
inclined to fall into a walk; but a touch of the whip sent them
into line again. I began to view the whole situation more quietly.
Considering that we had forty-five miles to go, we were doing very well
indeed. We made Bell's corner in forty minutes, and still I was saving
the horses' strength.

On to the wild land we turned, where the snow underfoot was soft and
free from those hard clods that cause the horses' feet to stumble.
I beguiled the time by watching the distance through the surrounding
brush. Everybody, of course, has noticed how the open landscape seems to
turn when you speed along. The distance seems to stand still, while
the foreground rushes past you. The whole countryside seems to become a
rev