descent.

"You're dressed pretty light," he advised; "better hoof it a ways
and get warm."

The words tipped the balance of Thorpe's decision. He descended
stiffly, conscious of a disagreeable shock from a six-inch jump.

In ten minutes, the wallowing, slipping, and leaping after the
tail of the sled had sent his blood tingling to the last of his
protesting members. Cold withdrew. He saw now that the pines were
beautiful and solemn and still; and that in the temple of their
columns dwelt winter enthroned. Across the carpet of the snow
wandered the trails of her creatures,--the stately regular prints
of the partridge; the series of pairs made by the squirrel; those
of the weasel and mink, just like the squirrels' except that the
prints were not quite side by side, and that between every other
pair stretched the mark of the animal's long, slender body; the
delicate tracery of the deer mouse; the fan of the rabbit; the print
of a baby's hand that the raccoon left; the broad pad of a lynx;
the dog-like trail of wolves;--these, and a dozen others, all equally
unknown, gave Thorpe the impression of a great mysterious multitude
of living things which moved about him invisible. In a thicket of
cedar and scrub willow near the bed of a stream, he encountered one
of those strangely assorted bands of woods-creatures which are
always cruising it through the country. He heard the cheerful little
chickadee; he saw the grave nuthatch with its appearance of a total
lack of humor; he glimpsed a black-and-white woodpecker or so, and
was reviled by a ribald blue jay. Already the wilderness was taking
its character to him.