for the scream of the impudent
whiskey-jack. But soon even these became silent. As he surmounted each
hill top Cameron took his bearings afresh and anxiously scanned the sky
for weather signs. In spite of himself there crept over him a sense of
foreboding, which he impatiently tried to shake off.

"I can't be so very far from camp now," he said to himself, looking at
his watch. "It is just four. There are three good hours till dark."

A little to the west of his line of march stood a high hill which
appeared to dominate the surrounding country and on its top a lofty
pine. "I'll just shin up that tree," said he. "I ought to get a sight
of the Bow from the top." In a few minutes he had reached the top of
the hill, but even in those minutes the atmosphere had thickened. "Jove,
it's getting dark!" he exclaimed. "It can't be near sundown yet. Did I
make a mistake in the time?" He looked at his watch again. It showed a
quarter after four. "I must get a look at this country." Hurriedly
he threw off his jacket and proceeded to climb the big pine, which,
fortunately, was limbed to the ground. From the lofty top his eye could
sweep the country for many miles around. Over the great peaks of the
Rockies to the west dark masses of black cloud shot with purple and
liver-coloured bars hung like a pall. To the north a line of clear light
was still visible, but over the foot-hills towards east and south there
lay almost invisible a shimmering haze, soft and translucent, and above
the haze a heavy curtain, while over the immediate landscape there shone
a strange weird light, through which there floated down to earth large
white snowflakes. Not a breath of air moved across the face of the
hills, but still as the dead they lay in solemn oppressive silence. Far
to the north Cameron caught the gleam of water.

"That must be the Bow," he said to himself. "I am miles too far toward
the mountains. I don't like the look of that haze and that cloud bank.
There is a blizzard on the move if this winter's experience teaches me
anything."

He had once been caught in a blizzard, but on that occasion he was
with McIvor. He was conscious now of a little clutch at his heart as
he remembered that desperate struggle for breath, for life it seemed to
him, behind McIvor's broad back. The country was full of stories of men
being overwhelmed by the choking, drifting whirl of snow. He knew how
swift at times the on-fall of the blizzard could be, how long the