Yet, despite John Lee's great resolutions, a chance unforeseen came now to thwart them, and it was many weeks before any human foot explored the desolate ravine that hid Lovey Lee's secrets. As though to convince the master of Fox Tor Farm that the moor-men did well to fear winter, terrific weather fell upon the upland waste. Long weeks of sulky black frost ended in white frost. From lowering skies the sun crept forth above the undulation of Cater's Beam; but his direct rays proved powerless to thaw the ground. Each night the frost bit deeper; each morning the cattle byres were coated with ice from the frozen breath of the kine. Work was suspended, and the world seemed a thing perished and insensible to any further touch of life. Then, alter a cloudless week, the wind, that had puffed fitfully as it listed, yet never found a cloud to drive along the pale azure floors of heaven, went north and stopped there. Now the frost abated by a degree or two, but still remained severe and, from day to day, feathers and films of cloud swept southerly. For some time these vanished before nightfall; then they increased and a few light snow-showers fell. They heralded a notable and terrific blizzard, whose sustained fury burst upon the Moor, swallowed its boundaries, buried its lonely heart and piled mighty barriers of snow between the central waste and all civilisation. Fox Tor Farm was well equipped for such a siege; but many an isolated homestead, now surprised by weather beyond man's memory to parallel, found itself much straitened until the thaw. At one place above all others this avalanche of snow brought with it deep concern and anxiety. In the War Prison, Commandant Cottrell and his staff, with ten thousand men to feed, found great problems threatening their peace. Supplies promised quickly to run short, and even the store of sealed provisions set aside for any possible emergency, represented little more than a week's fare for the hosts of Americans and French. Within three days of the great isolation food was being nursed and rations were decreased--a hardship terrible at such a time. But unutterable suffering and woe beyond words marked these black weeks at Prince Town. Infinite cold settled upon the waste, and thousands of prisoners stuck all day to their hammocks, leaving them only at the hour of meals. All buying and selling had been suspended, for the country-folk now possessed nothing they could part from. Within the War Prison order and discipline were scarce maintained beneath the strain; death reigned at the hospital, and nimiety of human misery found an end in the frozen earth.