those two ridges of frozen snow there was a little cavern-like crevice in
the rock. It was sheltered perfectly from those terrific winds which
sometimes for days together would drive screaming over the levels. And
in this crevice, at the first heavy snowfall, a big white bear had curled
herself up to sleep.

"She had had a good hunting season, with plenty of seals and salmon to
eat, and she was fat and comfortable. Though very drowsy, she did not go
quite to sleep at once, but for several days, in a dreamy half-doze, she
kept from time to time turning about and rearranging her bed. All the
time the snow was piling down into the crevice, till at last it was level
full and firmly packed. And in the meantime the old bear, in her sleepy
turnings, had managed to make herself a sort of snowhouse--decidedly
narrow, indeed, but wonderfully snug in its way. There was no room to
take exercise, of course, but that, after all, was about the last thing
she was thinking of. A day or two more and she was too fast asleep to do
anything but breathe.

"The winter deepened, and storm after storm scourged the naked plain; and
the snow fell endlessly, till the snowhouse was buried away fairly out of
remembrance. The savage cold swept down noiselessly from outer space,
till, if there had been any such things as thermometers up there, the
mercury would have been frozen hard as steel and the thin spirit to a
sticky, ropy syrup. But even such cold as that could not get down to the
hidden snow-house where the old bear lay so sound asleep."

The Child wagged his head wistfully at the picture, and then cheered
himself with the resolve to build just such a snowhouse in the back yard
that winter--if only there should fall enough snow. But he managed to
hold his tongue about it.