forest with a new beauty and a new wonder. The dim light of the dawning
day deepened the silence, so that involuntarily he hushed his voice in
speaking, and the deep-toned roll of the sleigh-bells seemed to smite
upon that dim, solemn quiet with startling blows. On either side
the balsams and spruces, with their mantles of snow, stood like
white-swathed sentinels on guard--silent, motionless, alert. Hughie
looked to see them move as the team drove past.

As they left the more open butternut ridge and descended into the depths
of the big pine swamp, the dim light faded into deeper gloom, and Hughie
felt as if he were in church, and an awe gathered upon him.

"It's awful still," he said to Billy Jack in a low tone, and Billy Jack,
catching the look in the boy's face, checked the light word upon his
lips, and gazed around into the deep forest glooms with new eyes. The
mystery and wonder of the forest had never struck him before. It had
hitherto been to him a place for hunting or for getting big saw-logs.
But to-day he saw it with Hughie's eyes, and felt the majesty of its
beauty and silence. For a long time they drove without a word.

"Say, it's mighty fine, isn't it?" he said, adopting Hughie's low tone.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Hughie. "My! I could just hug those big trees.
They look at me like--like your mother, don't they, or mine?" But this
was beyond Billy Jack.

"Like my mother?"

"Yes, you know, quiet and--and--kind, and nice."