Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/188

170 season. Although the fall had come late, the snows were exceptionally early. The duck flight was completed two weeks before its usual time, and the rodents had dug their burrows unusually deep. Besides, too many months of snow weigh heavily upon the spirit. The wolf packs sing endlessly on the ridges, and many unpleasant things may happen. On previous years, some of the cabins on the ridges below had human occupants; this winter the whole region, for nearly seventy miles across the mountains to the foothills, would be wholly deserted by human beings. Even the ranger station, twelve miles across a steep ridge, would soon be empty. Of course a few ranchers had homes a few miles beyond the river, but the wild cataracts did not freeze in the coldest of seasons, and there were no bridges. Besides, most of the more prosperous farmers wintered in the valleys. Only a few more days would the road be passable for his car; and no time must be lost in making his decision.

Once the snows came in reality, there was nothing to do but stay. Seventy miles across the uncharted ridges on snowshoes is an undertaking for which even a mountaineer has no fondness. It might be the wisest thing, after all, to load Snowbird and Dan into his car and drive down to the valleys. The fall round-up