Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1921-01-14

fire that he built In the CRATE. he was
glad of the great pile OF wood that
Law outside the door. 1t meant life IT
self, In this season. Then Snowbird
led him TO the windows, and they
watched the white drifts pile up over
the low underbrush.
When finally the snowstorm ceased,
FIVE days later, the whole face OF the
wilderness was changed. The buck
brush was mostly covered, the fences
were out of sight; the forest seemed
n clear, clean sweep Of white, broken
only by an occasional tall thicket and
by the great. snow-covered trees.
When the clouds blew away. and
the air grew clear, the temperature
began TO fall. Dan had no way OF
knowing how low 1t went. Thermome-
ters were not considered essential at
| the Lennox home. But when his eye
lids CONCEALED with the frost, and his
mittens froze to the logs Of firewood
that he carried through the door. and
the pine trees exploded and cracked in
| the darkness. he was correct in his
| belief that II was very, very cold.
But he loved the cold, and the ST.
lence and austerity that went with It,
The wilderness claimed him as never
before. The rugged breed that were
his ancestors had struggled through
| such seasons as this and passed love
of them down through the years to
him.
When the ice made a crust over the
snow. he learned TO walk on snow
shoes. At first there were panied
ankles and endless flounderng in the
drifts But between the fall of fresh
snow and the thaws that softened the
| crust he slowly mastered the art.
| Snowbird-and Dan never realized the
| full significance of her name until he
| saw her flying with incredible grace
over the snow-laughed at him at first
and ran him races that would usually
end in his falling headfirst into ten
foot snowbank. She taught him how
| to ski and more than once she would
stop i'm the middle of an earnest bit
of pedagogy to find that he wasn't lis
tening at ALL He would seem to be
| fairly devouring her with his eyes, de-
lighting In the play of soft pinks and
reds in her cheeks, and drinking, as
man drinks wine, the amazing change
of light and shadow in her eyes.
She seemed to blossom under his
| gaze. Not one of those short winter
DAYS went by without the discovery
of some new trait or littlc vanity to
astonish or delight bim-sometimes
an unlooked-for tenderness toward the
weak, often sweet. untained philos-
ophy of life or perhaps just lower
ing of her eyelids in which her eyes
| would show lustrous through the
lashes, or some sweeping, exuberant
gesture startlingly graceful.
Lennox Weakened one morning with
me realization that this was one Of
| the hardest winters of his experience
He began to be very glad of the abun-
| dant stores of provisions that over
crowded his pantry-savory hams and
bacons, dried venison, sacks of pota-
toes and evaporated vegetables, and,
! of course. canned goods past count
ing. With the high fire roaring In the
| CRATE, Tie StdSOn IViu hO iiiS W. Ni'NAh
But sometimes, when the bitter cold
came down Twilight, and the moon
looked like thing Of Ice itself over the
| snow, he began to wonder how the
wild creatures who wlntered on the
| Divide were faring. OF course most
of them were gone. Wool. long since,
had grunted and mumbled his way
| int lot ptt hn unIunc rn-
NAMED, strange gray shadows on the
snow, and possibly few Of the
harder smaller creatures.
More than once In those long win
ter nights their talk was chopped off
short by the song of the pack on some
distant ridge. Sometime, when the
world is old. possibly man will be
born that can continue to talk and
keep his mind on his words while the
wolf pack sings. But he is certainly
an unknown quantity today. The cry
sets IN vibration curious memory
chords, and for moment the listener
sees In his minds eye his ancient
home IL an ancient world-Darkness
and Fear and Eyes shining about the
| cave. III CdTTleS ulID UdCh, anu lie
knows the wilderness as it really is;
and TO have such knowledge dries up
all inclination to talk, as a sponge
dries water OF course the picture
isn't entirely plain. II is more thing
guessed at, photograph in some dark
part Of an under-consciousness that
has constantly grown more dim as the
centuries have passed. Possibly some
time II will fade out altogether and
then q man may continue to discuss
the weather while the Song from the
| ridge shudders in at the windows, But
the world will be quite cold by then,
and no longer particularly interesting.
And possibly even the wolves them
selves will then be tanned to play dead
and speak pieces-which means the
wilderness itself will be tanned. For
as long as the wild lasts, the pack will
run through IL I'm the winter They
were here In the beginning. and In
spite of constant war and constant
hatred on the part Of men. they will
f ho bnr1 IN, tbn npI Tho roacnr 10 inst