In the early afternoon, it had been warm, even to thawing-point. But now, as the wind rose, it shuttled with a sharp cold the woof of the air. Earlier, the air had been clear and speckless as the void above quiet water, and bland in its touch upon the skin. Now, it was clouded with gathering snow-atoms, hard as sand, whose impact upon face and hands was needle-sharp and whose irritation of the eyeballs blinded the vision with rheum. Earlier, the sky had been bright-blue from horizon to zenith. Now, it was half-fogged with a kind of smoke-blue mist, that was nothing other than the first draft of a trillion-atomed host of snow-motes drawn up to their unfriendly function by the cold whirlwind that should general their attack upon the prairie's winter peace. The blizzard is like, and yet contrary to, the thunderstorm that is the crowning phenomenon of summer. It is like, in that it is preceded by a "weather-breeding" twelve hours or so of undue heat; it is like, in the effect of its attack; it is like, in its whipping of the outcast, its lashing of the earth; it is somewhat like in its roar, although there is no thunder to diapason the storm of mid-winter. But it is contrary in color, and in duration, and in direction--or rather, lack of direction. For the color of a blizzard is not a definite black, but a blinding white; its duration is not a few moments, but long hours of terrific, unabated wind-energy; its direction is everywhere--that is to say, you can turn your back to a thunderstorm, but you cannot turn your back to a blizzard. If you face to windward, you get the volley of the "spindrift" direct; if you face leeward, you get it round a corner, just as stingingly. To the wanderer, a blizzard is a succession of intersecting whirlwinds, not a direct blast from a definite point in the compass. Sir William Ware, in this sleigh that was inching its course--at least, so it seemed--across the long ten miles that separated Toddburn village from the Nixon farm, felt an odd sense of dependence as he watched the gathering of the storm. There was in his whole fine body and brain no fibre of fear, as far as personal danger was concerned--for, besides the heritage of his family and race, he was too much the philosopher to regard the chance of death with anything but curiosity. But he felt awed by the cold, the great white vastness, the thrilling mighty wind--not yet at anything like its crescendo, either--and the feeling that his sole link with safety, this bluff Canadian pioneer who held the destiny of that sleighful in his rough-mittened hands that held the horses' reins and his wonderful, but not infallible, pioneer's sense of direction, was plainly a bit anxious in spite of all his experience. "Suppose we have a song, old chap," he leaned forward and shouted in Nixon's ear; "start up something you know, and we'll all join in the chorus."