rse--yet not impeding
his progress with drifts to be tunneled through.

Harry King had been growing more and more uneasy during the day, and
had kept the trail from the cabin to the turn of the cliff clear of
snow, but below that point he did not think it wise to go: he could
not, indeed. There, however, he stationed himself to wait through the
night, and just beyond the turn he built a fire, thinking it might
send a light into the darkness to greet Larry, should he happen to be
toiling through the snow.

He did not arouse the fears of Amalia by telling her he meant to keep
watch all night on the cliff, but he asked her for a brew of Larry
Kildene's coffee--of which they had been most sparing--when he left
them after the evening meal, and it was given him without a thought,
as he had been all day working in the snow, and the request seemed
natural. He asked that he might have it in the great kettle in which
they prepared it, and carried it with him to the fodder shed.

Darkness had settled over the mountain when, after an hour's rest, he
returned to the top of the trail and mended his fire and placed his
kettle near enough to keep the contents hot. Through half the night he
waited thus, sometimes walking about and peering into the obscurity
below, sometimes replenishing his fire, and sometimes just patiently
sitting, his arms clasped about his knees, gazing into space and
brooding.

Many times had Harry King been lonely, but never had the awesomeness
of life and its mysterious leadings so impressed him as during this
night's vigil. Moses alone on the mountain top, carried there and left
where he might see into the promised land--the land toward which he
had been aided miraculously to lead his people, but which he might not
enter because of one sin,--one only transgression,--Elijah sitting
alone in the wilderness waiting for the revealing of God--waiting
heartbroken and weary, vicariously bearing in his own spirit regrets
and sorrows over the waywardness of his people Israel,--and John, the
forerunner--a "Voice crying in the wilderness 'Repent ye!'"--these
were not so lonely, for their God was with them and had led them by
direct communication and miraculous power; they were not lonely as
Cain was lonely, stained with a brother's blood, cast out from among
his fellows, hunted and haunted by his own guilt.

Silence profound and indescribable reigned, while the great, soft
flakes continued to drift slowly down, silen