Hume had noticed Jeff Hyde's face when it was turned to the eddying
drifts of the north, and he understood what was in the experienced
huntsman's mind. He knew that severe weather was before them, and that
the greatest danger of the journey was to be encountered.
That night they saw Manitou Mountain, cold, colossal, harshly calm; and
jointly with that sight there arose a shrieking, biting, fearful north
wind. It blew upon them in cruel menace of conquest, in piercing
inclemency. It struck a freezing terror to their hearts, and grew in
violent attack until, as if repenting that it had foregone its power to
save, the sun suddenly grew red and angry, and spread out a shield of
blood along the bastions of the west. The wind shrank back and grew less
murderous, and ere the last red arrow shot up behind the lonely western
wall of white, the three knew that the worst of the storm had passed and
that death had drawn back for a time. What Hume thought may be gathered
from his diary; for ere he crawled in among the dogs and stretched
himself out beside Bouche, he wrote these words with aching fingers:
January 10th: Camp 39.
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