Morning Star nodded, the others grunted their approval and betook themselves to sleep and rest. So did Verbaux, and nothing moved in the post but the four sentries that paced silently up and down, across, and between the log openings.
The night was dark and the air damp and still; at daylight snow fell swiftly; the cold white bits massed themselves on everything; shapes grew, becoming distorted and vague. The soft murmuring of the trees as they bowed to and fro in the light wind came faintly through the screens of white; like veils of down, the big flakes floated to the earth, silently and relentlessly. The sentries gathered together, and their guttural whisperings sounded thick and muffled on the heavy air; one lighted his pipe, and the faint glow of the match showed the four faces close together, and cast thin shadows behind their ears. Up and down, up and down they paced again, their figures moving by unseen motion in the dim half-morning light. The smell of burnt wood was blown about by the eddying draft that moved within the walls, seeking its way out. Then from somewhere floated a cry—an unknown, indescribable tone that vibrated, thrilled a moment, and died away.
“Qu’est-ce?” asked one of the Indians. No answer: the others were listening. Only the snow silence could be heard; the minute settling of the flakes on the logs, the drifting of the heavier ones against the buildings, was audible; beyond these nothing was felt but the peace of the coming of day, that hour when everything is truly still, when man sleeps the heaviest, when animals are about to wake, but have not moved from their night’s bed. The sentries watched from their loopholes and saw the light come stronger and stronger; saw the outlines of the clearing define themselves; saw the branches of the trees stand out clearer and clearer from the mass and become separate; saw them bending farther and farther with their load of white, and finally could see through the dull gloom of the forest trunks, and discern the stillness of everything. The atmosphere changed suddenly; it became steel-like in its sting of cold. The falling snow was harder and the wind increased, blowing it into the men’s faces in biting myriads. The light was chilling and gray; comfortless and repellent. For a fleeting instant one yellow ray of the coming sun forced itself athwart the pallid heavens, then it was gone and all was bleak and stern again.