On second thought we took our own little hut and moved it bodily to the shed, deeming it best that all our forces should keep as close together as possible. Then, our main task finished, we took breakfast, and watched the snow, casting an occasional glance toward Fort Hetherill. We were glad on the whole now that the snow had come, for if we should be snowed up the colonel would be treated likewise, and perhaps it would induce him to hoist the white flag. The day had come, but it was a very dark and dreary pattern of a day. I have seen some people who imagine that Kentucky has a warm climate. It may have in summer, and so, for the matter of that, has Manitoba, but for real deep snows or piercing cold that goes right through your bones and comes out on the other side, I will match the Kentucky mountains against anything this side of the Arctic circle. The snow that morning seemed bent upon making a record. Some of the flakes looked like big white goose feathers. Nor was there any nonsense about them. They came straight down and took their appointed place on the earth; others immediately fell and covered them up, and in turn were served the same way. There was no wind at all. The clouds were drawn like a huge dirty blanket across the sky, and gave to everything except the snow itself a muddy, grayish-brown tint. Presently we heard a sharp report in the adjacent forest, and then another, followed speedily by another and many others, until they blended often together like a rolling rifle-fire. A dreaming veteran might have thought he was back in the wars, but none of us stirred, for each knew that it was the boughs of the trees breaking with a snap under the weight of new snow. "That might scare a man who was never in the woods in big-snow time," said Crothers, who had lighted a pipe and was taking things calmly. The snow deepened faster than I had ever seen it before. I could mark it by the way the surface lines crept up the side of our rude shed. A few hours of such industrious clouds and the mountains would be past travelling. The skies made promise of nothing else. There was no break in the dun expanse. The defiant curl of smoke from the colonel's little fort still rose. I devoutly hoped that he would remember soon to come out and join us. Then we could go back together to Fort Defiance, and make merry behind stout walls that cared nothing for snow and cold. But his hut remained tightly closed, and the snow was deepening as fast as ever. Since the colonel would make no sign, it became evident to me that we must. I called again my council of officers, the doctor and Crothers. "There is nothing for us to do," I said, "but send Miss Hetherill to the hut and see if she cannot persuade her father to join us." "He has said that he would not admit her a second time," said the doctor. "She must push her way in," I said. "The door to that hut is not strong, and a father would not fire upon his own daughter."