306 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTEK. 



from the cold and his breath was frosted like a wedding- 

 cake, " matter enough ; here we are on the top of Ball 

 Mountain, the drag-chain broken, and I am so confound- 

 edly cold, that I could not tie a knot in a rope if I 

 had eighteen thousand hands." 



It was a rueful situation truly. I jumped out of the 

 stage, and contemplated the prospect near and at a dis- 

 tance, with mixed feelings. So absorbed did I soon be- 

 come,- that I lost sight of the unpleasant situation in 

 which we were placed, and regarded only the appear- 

 ance of things about me, disconnected with my personal 

 happiness. 



There stood the stage, upon the very apex of the 

 mountain, the hot steaming breath of my half-smothered 

 travellers pouring out of its open door in puffs like the 

 respirations of a mammoth. The driver, poor fellow, 

 was limping about, more than half frozen, — growling, 

 swearing, and threatening. The poor horses looked 

 about twenty years older than when they started, their 

 heads being whitened with the frost. They stamped 

 with impatience on the hard-ribbed ice, the polished iron 

 of their shoes looking as if it would penetrate their flesh 

 with biting cold. 



But such a landscape of beauty — all shrouded in 

 death, we never saw or conceived of, and one like it is 

 seldom presented to the eye. Down the mountain could 

 be traced the broad road in serpentine windings, lessening 

 in the distance until it appeared no wider than a foot- 



