And then, to a cold blast from the East, a few days later, the grasshoppers all disappeared. Charles-Norton took his axe, went into the woods, and chopping open mouldy logs, obtained a store of white grub. The trout took them. But Fatality now was dogging him close. When, with tingling skin, he opened the cabin-door a few mornings later, a cry escaped him. A snow-carpet spread from the crest over the face of the whole visible world, clear down to the western plain. It covered deep the meadow, hung in miniature mountain-chains on the boughs of the pines, filigreed the lake. The lake was frozen. Charles-Norton chopped a hole in the ice, then chopped logs and replenished his supply of grubs. The trout refused them. They could not be blamed; the grubs, hibernating, had shrunk themselves into hard little sticks devoid of the least suspicion of succulence. Charles-Norton and Dolly went breakfastless that morning. All day Charles-Norton roamed above the land with a vague idea of catching something. But living creatures seemed to have withdrawn into the earth; the few still out had put on white liveries; when Charles-Norton flew low, they fled him, and when he flew high, he could not distinguish them from the earth's impassive mantle. He thought once of the ranch in the plain and of its chicken-yard, but dropped the idea immediately. Dolly's vigorous little New England conscience would never accept a compromise such as this. Charles-Norton and Dolly that night went supperless to bed; they arose in the morning with no prospect of breakfast. Charles-Norton moped long at the fire while Dolly, very wisely silent, trotted about her work. Suddenly Charles-Norton rose with a smothered exclamation. In two strides he made for the door, opened it, and took wing; Dolly saw him flitting among the branches of the pines in mysterious occupation. He returned in great triumph and threw on the table a double handful of small, dry objects that looked like wooden beans. "We'll eat pine-nuts!" he cried enthusiastically. "Pine-nuts are just chuck full of protein!" For three days they lived on pine-nuts. And then, as on the third evening, they sat before the little heap which made their meal, Dolly fell forward on the table with a wide movement of her arms that scattered the supper in a dry tinkle to the floor, and remained thus with heaving shoulders.