From the lofty top his eye could
sweep the country for many miles around. Over the great peaks of the
Rockies to the west dark masses of black cloud shot with purple and
liver-coloured bars hung like a pall. To the north a line of clear light
was still visible, but over the foot-hills towards east and south there
lay almost invisible a shimmering haze, soft and translucent, and above
the haze a heavy curtain, while over the immediate landscape there shone
a strange weird light, through which there floated down to earth large
white snowflakes. Not a breath of air moved across the face of the
hills, but still as the dead they lay in solemn oppressive silence. Far
to the north Cameron caught the gleam of water.
"That must be the Bow," he said to himself. "I am miles too far toward
the mountains. I don't like the look of that haze and that cloud bank.
There is a blizzard on the move if this winter's experience teaches me
anything."
He had once been caught in a blizzard, but on that occasion he was
with McIvor. He was conscious now of a little clutch at his heart as
he remembered that desperate struggle for breath, for life it seemed to
him, behind McIvor's broad back. The country was full of stories of men
being overwhelmed by the choking, drifting whirl of snow. He knew how
swift at times the on-fall of the blizzard could be, how long the storm
could last, how appalling the cold could become.
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