A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above.

Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree's dismal, homeless cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom of the forest into the twilight gray of a clearing.

Twenty paces from them was a cabin.

The dogs stopped.

Father Roland fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it close up to his eyes.
"Half-past four," he said.