Out of the North came armies
of snow-laden clouds that scudded just above the earth, and with these
clouds came now and then a shrieking mockery of wind to taunt this
stricken creation of man and the creatures it sheltered--men and women
who had begun to shiver, and whose tense white faces stared with
increasing anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that hung
like a sable curtain ten feet from the car windows.
For three hours those faces had peered out into the night. Many of the
prisoners in the snowbound coaches had enjoyed the experience somewhat
at first, for there is pleasing and indefinable thrill to unexpected
adventure, and this, for a brief spell, had been adventure de luxe.
There had been warmth and light, men's laughter, women's voices, and
children's play. But the loudest jester among the men was now silent,
huddled deep in his great coat; and the young woman who had clapped her
hands in silly ecstasy when it was announced that the train was
snowbound was weeping and shivering by turns. It was cold--so cold that
the snow which came sweeping and swirling with the wind was like
granite-dust; it _clicked, clicked, clicked_ against the glass--a
bombardment of untold billions of infinitesimal projectiles fighting to
break in.
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