The Project Gutenberg EBook of Snow-Blind, by Katharine Newlin Burt

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Snow-Blind

Author: Katharine Newlin Burt

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7520]
Posting Date: July 24, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SNOW-BLIND ***

Produced by Ketaki Chhabra and Wendy Crockett

SNOW-BLIND

By Katharine Newlin Burt

Author Of The Branding Iron, Etc.

CHAPTER I

Under a noon sun the vast, flat country, buried deep in snow, lay like a
paper hoop rimmed by the dark primeval forest; its surface shone with an
unbearable brightness as of sun-struck glass, every crystal gleaming
and quivering with intense cold light. To the north a single blunt, low
mountain-head broke the evenness of the horizon line.

Hugh Garth seemed to leap through paper like a tiny active clown as he
dropped down into the small space shoveled clear in front of his hidden
cabin door. The roof was weighted with drift, so that a curling mass
like the edge of a wind-crowded wave about to break hung low over the
eaves. Long icicles as thick as a man's arm stretched from roof to
ground in a row of twisted columns. Under this overhanging cornice of
snow near the door there was a sudden icy purple darkness.

As Hugh plunged down into it, his face lost a certain rapt brightness
and shadowed deeply. He let slip the load of fresh pelts from his back,
drew his feet from the skis which he stuck up on their ends in the snow,
and removed the fur cap from his head and the huge dark spectacles from
his eyes. Then, crouching, he went in at the low, ill-hung door. It
stuck to its sill, and he cursed it; all his movements expressed the
anger of frustration. He slammed the door behind him.

Buried in drifts, the cabin was dim even at this bright hour of noon.
The stove glowed in a corner with a subdued redness, its bulging cheeks
and round mouth dully scarlet. The low room was pleasant to look at,
for it had the beauty of brown bark and the salmon tints of old rough
boards, and its furniture, wrought painstakingly by an unskillful hand,
had the charm of all handwork even when unskilled. Some of the chairs
were rudely