ranged from the
slope where the sturdy pioneer had built his house over miles and
miles of waving beech and maple woods, away to the dark line of pines
on the high ground that formed the horizon. In the valley below,
Otter Creek, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, wound its sparkling way
northward. When Autumn painted the scene in brilliant hues, and it
lay glowing under the crimson light of October sunsets, the dullest
observer could not restrain bursts of admiration.

Mr. Devins's first attack on the stubborn forest had been over the
brow of the hill, some four miles nearer Owenton, but his house was
burned down before he had taken his family there from Albany. He had
regretted that he had not "pitched his tent" on the slope of Otter
Creek; so now he began with renewed energy his second home, in which
the closing in of the winter of 1839 found him. He had sixty acres of
rich soil under cultivation at the time of which we are to speak, his
right-hand man being his son Allan,--a rugged, handsome, intelligent
boy of sixteen.

The winter of '39 was a terrible one; snow set in before the end of
November, and, even in the open country, lay upon the ground until the
beginning of April, while in the recesses of the forest it was found
as late as the middle of June. There was great distress among the
settlers outside of the bounds of civilization, to whom the deep snow
was an impassable barrier. The Devinses neither saw nor heard from
their nearest neighbors from the first of December till near the
beginning of February, when a crust was formed upon the snow
sufficiently firm to bear the weight of a man, and a friendly Cayuga
Indian brought them news of how badly their neighbors fared.

Mr. Devins was especially touched by the bad case of his friend Will
Inman, who lived on the nearest farm. The poor man lay ill of a fever;
Mrs. Inman was dead and temporarily buried, until her body could be
removed to the cemetery in Owenton, and all the care of the family
devolved upon Esther, his daughter, fourteen years old. After a short
consultation, the next morning breaking bright and clear though very
cold, it was determined to allow Allan to go over the hill to Inman's,
bearing medicine, tea, and other little necessaries for the family. He
was impressively warned to begin his return at so early an hour that
he might reach home before the short day's end, especially because of
the danger from wild animals. The severity of the winter