HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 53 



of rain and enveloping them. From such an 

 elevation one has the same view of the clouds 

 that he does from the prairie or the ocean. 

 They do not seem to rest across and to be 

 upborne by the hills, but they emerge out of 

 the dim west, thin and vague, and grow and 

 stand up as they get nearer and roll by him, 

 on a level but invisible highway, huge chariots 

 of wind and storm. 



In the afternoon a thick cloud threatened us, 

 but it proved to be the condensation of vapor 

 that announces a cold wave. There was soon 

 a marked fall in the temperature, and as night 

 drew near it became pretty certain that we were 

 going to have a cold time of it. The wind 

 rose, the vapor above us thickened and came 

 nearer, until it began to drive across the sum- 

 mit in slender wraiths, which curled over the 

 brink and shut out the view. We became very 

 diligent in getting in our night wood, and in 

 gathering more boughs to calk up the openings 

 in the hut. The wood we scraped together 

 was a sorry lot, roots and stumps and branches 

 of decayed spruce, such as we could collect 

 without an axe, and some rags and tags of birch 

 bark. The fire was built in one corner of the 

 shanty, the smoke finding easy egress through 

 large openings on the east side and in the roof 

 over it. We doubled up the bed, making it 

 thicker and more nest-like, and as darkness set 

 in stowed ourselves into it beneath our blank- 

 ets. The searching wind found out every crev- 

 ice about our heads and shoulders, and it was 



