The snow fell thicker and faster around us; and at the end of our first mile it was an inch deep. The way-worn path beneath our feet was of the same appearance as the forest slopes, all seeming one open wilderness, with nothing but occasional blazes on the scrub-oak tree trunks to mark the path of descent. Tabal needed nothing of the kind to find his way. So familiar is he with the whole range that, in the darkest night he could reach the valley without a wandering footstep. After two hours of slow travel the snow lay shoe-mouth deep, and the bitter wind, as it swept across the ridges, chilled and buffeted us, until, half frozen, with wet and benumbed feet, exhausted by ten miles of wading, and bruised by falls and slides, I felt my strength giving way. It was then half-past four by my watch; the snow was a foot in depth, and still falling. “Only three mile further,” said my companion, when he noticed how I was lagging in my pace, “and we’ll fetch up at Ramear’s cabin. Cheer up, man, an’ in a few minutes we’ll be all right, I ’low.” With this encouragement I quickened my footsteps and struggled on. Another mile had been slowly reeled out behind us; we had left the ridge and were in a hollow or cove, when a cabin suddenly appeared before us. The place was one of the wildest and dreariest of the mountains. On one side rose a forest of balsams; with somber foliage covered with the white mantle of the storm; almost perpendicularly upward it trended. Tangled laurel spread over the bottom land, and interwoven with the ivy, hedged the banks of a stream fresh from its sources. On the other side a rocky bluff, crowned with snow and clad in evergreen vines, loomed up like the crumbling wall of some ancient castle, with its summit lost in the veil of the falling snow. The cabin was jammed into a niche of this wall some twenty feet above the path we were following. It was a log hut of the humblest pretensions, tottering from age and decay on its rock foundation. In the shadow of the precipice, most gloomy it appeared, with its snow-burdened roof, moss-grown front, rough-plastered log chimney, and doorless entrance opening into a black interior. It looked to have been deserted a score or more of years, and its surroundings, unkept by the hand of man, by Nature were again being trained into primitive wildness. A cataract came pouring down by the cabin’s site. A regular ascent of steps led up to it through the laurel. In spite of the place’s uninviting aspect, I welcomed it as a safe refuge from the storm and the night. Tabal seemed not to see it, and was plodding steadily ahead a few feet in advance of me. “Hold on!” I called. “Here is a shelter for the night. No need of going further.” He turned with a strange expression in his face. “For God sake, don’t stop hyar! We must go on. Nothin’ could hire me to stop in thet ’air shell.”