the track first and paused to have time to consider it, at the word of command obediently plodded its continuous route.  A quarter of a mile farther on the traveller saw something on the road in front; as the sound of his pony’s jangling bells approached, a horse lifted its head and shook its own bells.  The horse, the sleigh which it ought to have been drawing, were standing still, full in the centre of the road.  The first thought, that it was cheering to come upon the trace of another wayfarer, was checked by the gloomy idea that some impassable drift must bar the way.

The other sleigh was a rough wooden platform on runners.  Upon it a man, wrapped in a ragged buffalo-skin, lay prostrate.  The Englishman jumped to the ground and waded till he could lay his hand upon the recumbent figure.

At the touch the man jumped fiercely, and shook himself from sleep.  Warm, luxurious sleep, only that, seemed to have enthralled him.  His cheeks were red, his aquiline nose, red also, suggested some amount of strong drink; but his black eyes were bright, showing that the senses were wholly alive.  He looked defiant, inquiring.  He was a French-Canadian, apparently a habitant, but he understood the English questions addressed to him.  The curious thing was that he seemed to have no reason for stopping.  When he had with difficulty made way for the gentleman to pass him on the road, he followed slowly, as it seemed reluctantly.  A mile farther on the Englishman, now far in front, suspected that the other had again stopped, and wondered much.  The man’s face had impressed him; the high cheek bones, the aquiline nose, the clearness of the eye and complexion—­these had not expressed dull folly.

Now the Englishman came to another cross road, wider but more deeply drifted than the track he was on.  He turned into it and ploughed the drifts.  When he reached the shore, where the land undulated, the drifts were still deeper.  There were no trees here; he could see no house; there was hardly any evidence, except the evergreen branches stuck in the sides, that the road had ever been trodden.  The March dusk had now fallen, yet not darkly.  The full moon was beyond the clouds, and whatever wave of light came from declining day or rising night was held in by, and reflected softly from, the storm of pearl.  After some debate he turned back to the lake and his former road.  It must lead somewhere; he pressed steadily on toward the western end of the lake.

The western shore was level; he hardly knew when he was upon the land.  The glimmering night blinded the traveller; no ray of candle light was in sight.  He began to think that he was destined to see his horse slowly buried, and himself to fight, as long as might be, a losing battle with the fiends of the air.