found places where it could lodge. At length, however, they came to the
woods; and there they were sheltered from the wind, and the snow fell
more equally. Josey had found it quite cold riding in the open ground,
for the wind was against them; but under the shelter of the trees he
found it quite warm and comfortable.

The forest appeared very silent and solitary. It is true they could hear
the moaning of the wind upon the tops of the trees, but there was no
sound of life, and no motion but that of the fine flakes descending
through the air in a gentle shower. The whole surface of the ground, and
every thing lying upon it, was covered with the snow; for the branches,
and the stumps, and the stems trimmed up for timber, and the places
where the old snow had been trampled down by the oxen and by the
woodcutters, were now all whitened over again and concealed.

"Who would think," said Jonas, "that there could be any thing alive
here?"

"Is there any thing?" said Josey.

"Yes, thousands of animals, all covered up in the snow,--mice in the
ground, and squirrels in the hollow logs, and millions of insects,
frozen up in the bark of the dead trees."

"And they'll be covered up deeper before morning," said Josey.

"Yes," said Jonas, "and so would our rafters, if we didn't get them out.
We could not have found half of them, if we had left them till after
this storm."