Once the horses had really learned to pull exactly
together--and they learned it thoroughly here--our progress
was not too bad. Of course, it was not like going on a
grade, be it ever so badly drifted in. Here the ground
underneath, too, was uneven and overgrown with a veritable
entanglement of brush in which often the horses' feet
would get caught. As for the road, there was none left,
nothing that even by the boldest stretch of imagination
could have been considered even as the slightest indication
of one. And worst of all, I knew positively that there
would be no trail at any time during the winter. I was
well aware of the fact that, after it once snowed up,
nobody ever crossed this waste between the "half way
farms" and the "White Range Line House." This morning it
took me two and a half solid hours to make four miles.
But the ordeal had its reward. Here where the fact that
there was snow on the ground, and plenty of it, did no
longer need to be sunk into my brain--as soon as it had
lost its value as a piece of news and a lesson, I began
to enjoy it just as the hunter in India will enjoy the
battle of wits when he is pitted against a yellow-black
tiger.
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