"Indeed it does, young lady. When there is a heavy fall of snow, and the wind blows hard, it drifts almost as high as the house. Yes, I think we're in for a storm, and I'm going to get ready for it. Best to be on the safe side."
A little later he and a number of his hired men, as well as some of the picture players, were engaged in looking after the horses and cows. Great piles of hay and grain were moved from the barns where the fodder was kept in reserve, to the buildings where the stock were stabled.
"How about our rations?" asked Mr. Bunn, who was not of much help in work of this sort. "Have we enough to last through a storm?"
"Well, we've got some," Mr. Macksey admitted. "But I own I would like a little better stock in the Lodge. I counted on some supplies coming in to-day; but they haven't arrived. We'll have to do the best we can."
"What is all the excitement about, Alice?" asked Ruth as she came out to join her sister on the porch.
"A big storm coming, Mr. Macksey says. They're getting ready for it. I want to see it!"
"Oh, Alice. Suppose it should be a blizzard!"
"Well, I want to see it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it; but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically philosophical way.
There was a curious humming in the air, as though someone, a great way off, were moaning in pain. It did not seem to be the wind, and yet it was like the sigh of a breeze. But the gaunt-limbed trees did not bow before this strange blast.
The air, too, had a bite and tingle to it as though it were filled with invisible particles of ice. The clouds were lowering, and as the afternoon wore away there sprang up in the west a black band of vapor, almost like ink.