306 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
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.” 
{twas 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 
plains cold. 7 
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- 
