Oh! those glorious sand-hills—an endless rolling stretch of sandy dunes, with lakes and woods and grassy lawns between. Life—life, on every side, and life within, for Yan was young and strong and joyed in powers complete, and he said, "These are the best days of my life, these are my golden days." He thought it then, and oh, how well he came to know it in the after years!
The seasons round.
All day at a long wolf-lope he would go and send the white hare and the partridge flying from his path, and swing along and scan the ground for sign and the tell-tale inscript in the snow, the oldest of all writing, more thrillful of interest by far than the finest glyph or scarab that ever Egypt gave to modern day.
But the driving snow was the wild deer's friend, as the driven snow was his foe, and down it came that day and wiped out every trace.
The next day and the next still found Yan careering in the hills, but never a track or sign did he see. And the weeks went by and many a rolling mile he ran and many a bitter day and freezing night he passed in the snowclad hills, sometimes on a deer-trail but more often without. Sometimes in the barren hills, and sometimes led by woodmen's talk to far-off sheltering woods, and once or twice he saw indeed the buff-white bannerets go floating up the hills. Sometimes reports came of a great buck that frequented the timberlands near the saw-mill, and more than once Yan found his trail, but never got a glimpse of him; and the few deer there were, now grew so wild with long pursuit that he had no further chances to shoot, and the hunting season passed in one long train of failures. Bright, unsad failures they, for every day on the trail was a glad triumphant march.
He seemed indeed to come back empty-handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of the chase.