neighborhood of
their enemies, the men who coveted their thick and long-haired hides
worth a good many dollars. But she saw few living things; once there
was a great snowy owl that rose heavily and then flew swiftly and in
silence from a stump in a _brule_, disappearing among the trees like
an animated shadow, yes, a shadow of sudden death to hares and
partridges cowering beneath the fronds of wide-spreading conifers or
in the great tangles of frost-killed long grasses.

It was altogether another world, strange and of rugged beauty. She
felt as if she had been transported from the seething city into the
vast peace of some landscape of moon or stars. Every bit of the old
harsh world was now left behind and there was no longer any hint of
cruelty in the snowy plains and hills and forest; nothing reminded her
of despairing hunger, of the disbelief that had stolen upon her in the
possibility of eking out much longer a life that was too hard to
sustain. What if her errand seemed fantastic, unreal, since this new
world also was like some illusion of a dream? The great stillness
appeared to be friendly--the bent tops of snow-laden trees surely
bowed a welcome to her--the shining sun and the pure air, in spite of
bitter cold, drove the blood more rapidly through her veins and she no
longer deemed life to be a mere form of suffering, such as she had
undergone during the last year of her losing contest in the cruel,
pitiless town.

Suddenly, as Stefan trudged behind in a narrow part of the old
tote-road, a big white hare crossed the path ahead of the dogs,
perhaps seeking to escape the pursuit of some marten or weasel. At
once the team broke into a headlong gallop, a helter-skelter pursuit,
while their master roared at them unavailingly. Down a small declivity
they flew. A moment later one side of the toboggan rose suddenly and
the passenger felt herself being shot off into the snow. As the sled
upset the little trunk lashed to its back caught into something and
firmly anchored the whole contrivance, a few yards further on, and
perforce the animals stopped with hanging tongues and steaming
breaths.

An instant later Stefan was helping Madge arise. He looked at her in
deep concern.

"Dem tamn togs!" he roared. "I hope you ain't hurted none, leddy?"

With his assistance she rose quickly from the snow. It is possible
that she had scarcely had time enough to become afraid. At any rate
this new life that had come to her assert