Crying, and swearing at his helplessness, the deserted soldier closed the door, and crept back shivering into his blankets.
Hughes turned his horse's head to the southwest, and rode steadily forward, the buffalo overcoat giving him a shaggy, grotesque appearance in the spectral light reflected from the snow.

Without a word Hamlin followed, a pace behind.

Their route lay for the first few miles across a comparatively level plateau, over which the fierce wind of the late storm had swept with such violence as to leave the surface packed firm.

The night shut them in silently, giving to their immediate surroundings a mournful loneliness most depressing.

There were no shadows, only the dull snow-gleam across which they passed like spectres, the only sound the crunching of their horses' hoofs on the crust.