He entered the backwoods village of Bytown literally on the wings of
the wind. It whirled him along like a big snowflake, and dropped
him at the door of Moody's "Sportsmen's Retreat," as if he were a
New Year's gift from the North Pole. His coming seemed a mere
chance; but perhaps there was something more in it, after all. At
all events, you shall hear, if you will, the time and the manner of
his arrival.

It was the last night of December, some thirty-five years ago. All
the city sportsmen who had hunted the deer under Bill Moody's
direction had long since retreated to their homes, leaving the
little settlement on the border of the Adirondack wilderness wholly
under the social direction of the natives.

The annual ball was in full swing in the dining-room of the hotel.
At one side of the room the tables and chairs were piled up, with
their legs projecting in the air like a thicket of very dead trees.

The huge stove in the southeast corner was blushing a rosy red
through its thin coat of whitewash, and exhaling a furious dry heat
flavoured with the smell of baked iron. At the north end, however,
winter reigned; and there were tiny ridges of fine snow on the
floor, sifted in by the wind through the cracks in the window-
frames.

But the bouncing girls and the heavy-footed guides and lumbermen who
filled the ball-room did not appear to mind the heat or the cold.
They balanced and "sashayed" from the tropics to the arctic circle.
They swung at corners and made "ladies' change" all through the
temperate zone. They stamped their feet and did double-shuffles