ith a sharp snort, and back more vigorously than ever.

"There, my fine fellow, quiet now," said Charley in a soothing tone,
patting the horse's neck. "It's a comfort to know you can't go far in
that direction, anyhow!" he added, as he glanced over his shoulder, and
saw an immense drift behind.

He was right. In a few minutes the horse backed into the snow-drift.
Finding his hind-quarters imprisoned by a power that was too much even
for _his_ obstinacy to overcome, he gave another snort and a heavy
plunge, which almost unseated his young rider.

"Hold on fast," cried Harry, who had now come up.

"No fear," cried Charley, as he clinched his teeth and gathered the
reins more firmly.--"Now for it, you young villain!" and raising his
whip, he brought it down with a heavy slash on the horse's flank.

Had the snow-drift been a cannon, and the horse a bombshell, he could
scarcely have sprung from it with greater velocity. One bound landed
him on the road; another cleared it; and in a second more he stretched
out at full speed--his ears flat on his neck, mane and tail flying in
the wind, and the bit tight between his teeth.

"Well done," cried Harry, as he passed. "You're off now, old fellow;
good-bye."

"Hurrah!" shouted Charley, in reply, leaving his cap in the snow as a
parting souvenir; while, seeing that it was useless to endeavour to
check his steed, he became quite wild with excitement; gave him the
rein; flourished his whip; and flew over the white plains, casting up
the snow in clouds behind him like a hurricane.

While this little escapade was being enacted by the boys, the hunters
were riding leisurely out upon the snowy sea in search of a wolf.

Words cannot convey to you, dear reader, an adequate conception of the
peculiar fascination, the exhilarating splendour of the scene by which
our hunters were surrounded. Its beauty lay not in variety of feature
in the landscape, for there was none. One vast sheet of white alone met
the view, bounded all round by the blue circle of the sky, and broken in
one or two places by a patch or two of willows, which, rising on the
plain, appeared like little islands in a frozen sea. It was the
glittering sparkle of the snow in the bright sunshine; the dreamy
haziness of the atmosphere, mingling earth and sky as in a halo of gold;
the first taste, the first _smell_ of spring after a long winter,
bursting suddenly upon the senses, like the unexpected visit of a
long-ab