completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened
the door between the living-room and her own. Her father was sleeping
soundly in his bunk in the corner. She passed noiselessly through the
room, opened the lightly fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed
the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of
the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical
putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of
her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered. The
view before her was a revelation--a reproach, a surprise that took away
her breath. Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of
silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the
river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the
Devil's Spur--no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady
exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and
unutterable beauty. In this magical light that beauty seemed to be
sustained and carried along by the river winding at its base, lifted
again to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the
distant vista of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where
she stood the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks
to absorb her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into
insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another sign
or indication of human life and habitation. She looked in vain for
the settlement, for the rugged ditches, the scattered cabins, and the
unsightly heaps of gravel. In the glamour of the moonlight they had
vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor touched here and there with ebony
shadows masked its site. A black strip beyond was the river bank. All
else was changed. With a sudden sense of awe and loneliness she turned
to the cabin and its sleeping inmates--all that seemed left to her in
|