meadows and fringe of pines and cottonwood, lay alone like a summer
island in this frozen sea.

A sudden desire to view this phenomenon more closely, and to learn for
herself the limits of this new tethered life, completely possessed
her, and, accustomed to act upon her independent impulses, she seized a
hooded waterproof cloak, and slipped out of the house unperceived. The
rain was falling steadily along the descending trail where she walked,
but beyond, scarcely a mile across the chasm, the wintry distance began
to confuse her brain with the inextricable swarming of snow. Hurrying
down with feverish excitement, she at last came in sight of the arching
granite portals of their domain. But her first glance through the
gateway showed it closed as if with a white portcullis. Kate remembered
that the trail began to ascend beyond the arch, and knew that what she
saw was only the mountain side she had partly climbed this morning. But
the snow had already crept down its flank, and the exit by trail was
practically closed. Breathlessly making her way back to the highest part
of the plateau--the cliff behind the house that here descended abruptly
to the rain-dimmed valley--she gazed at the dizzy depths in vain for
some undiscovered or forgotten trail along its face. But a single glance
convinced her of its inaccessibility. The gateway was indeed their only
outlet to the plain below. She looked back at the falling snow beyond
until she fancied she could see in the crossing and recrossing lines
the moving meshes of a fateful web woven around them by viewless but
inexorable fingers.

Half frightened, she was turning away, when she perceived, a few paces
distant, the figure of the stranger, "Ned," also apparently absorbed
in the gloomy prospect. He was wrapped in the clinging folds of a black
serape braided with silver; the broad flap of a slouch hat beaten back