RAIN! But what difference does it make to us. Everyone is in a good humor. The house is warm and dry; we’ve lots to eat and lots to do.
Olson’s dory was again half full of water so we turned her and the skiff over. I stretched canvass and primed it and finished Anson’s “Voyage Around the World” a thrilling book. Late this afternoon it began to clear; the sun shone and we were presently at work with the saw—only to be driven in again by the shower. I expect fair weather to-morrow. But——
WILDERNESS
Wednesday, October ninth
Fair weather is still as far away as ever, unless a sharp but cloudy afternoon and sundown with brilliant light in the western sky spell change. Olson says the foxes will not eat to-night and that this is invariably a sign of change to good days—that in bad weather they eat and in fair they abstain. It poured in the morning and we worked indoors. After dinner we all moved a lumber pile that stood on the shore abreast of our cabin to a place nearer Olson’s—this only to better our view of the water. We sawed wood for a while and piled all that we have so far cut ready for winter use. There are in all fifty sections of short stove wood. That is a month and a half’s supply. I painted towards evening, and made two good sketches.
The nights have grown colder. For the past two days the mountains across from us, the nearest ones, have been covered with snow downwards to half their height. The farther ranges have for weeks been white. They’re beautiful and invite one to go climbing and sliding over their smooth white snowfields. Close to, one would find impassable crags and crevasses, a howling wind and bitter cold. Rockwell to-day finished his second book, “The Cave Dwellers.”
Midnight Bulletin: the stars are out, brilliant in a cloudless sky!