CHAPTER VII. 



A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 



ATE one fall a spell of bitter 

 weather set in, and lasted on 

 through the early part of the 

 winter. For many days to- 

 gether the cold was fierce in 

 its intensity ; and the wheels 

 of the ranch-wagon, when 

 we drove out for a load 

 of fire-wood, creaked and 

 sang as they ground through the powdery snow that 

 lay light on the ground. At night in the clear sky 

 the stars seemed to snap and glitter ; and for weeks 

 of cloudless white weather the sun shone down on a land 

 from which his beams glanced and glistened as if it had 

 been the surface of a mirror, till the glare hurt the eyes 

 that looked upon it. In the still nights we could hear the 

 trees crack and jar from the strain of the biting frost ; and 

 in its winding bed the river lay fixed like a huge bent bar 

 of blue steel. 



220 



