Many of the denizens of the forest, for instance, got greyer incolour, and some even white, while every bird and every beast becamesensibly larger.
"You see, young gentlemen," said Seth, explainingly, to Allan and Rory,"here is how it be: soon's they sniffs the change in the air they kinderknows winter is coming, so they just begins to tuck in and tuck in, andthe more they tucks in the fatter they grows; and the fatter they grows,the longer and softer the fur or the feather grows. It's a sort of aperwision o' Natur', ye see, to help them to stand the cold."
"But," said Rory, "this development of fat and fur or feather isn'tconfined to wild animals and birds; just look at our dogs!"
The great Saint Bernard was coming trotting along the deck as Roryspoke, and all eyes were immediately bent upon him. Oscar seemedintensely pleased about something, but he really had got fat, and thecoat which he had developed--all in one week, apparently--was simplymarvellous to behold. And now Seth's wolf, as he was called, came aft,and Oscar seemed actually to laugh all over, so did everybody else whenthey saw him; Plunket was no longer a wolf, all gaunt and lean and grim,there was not a rib to be seen in him, his skin was soft and sheeny, hisgait no longer an ambling shamble, but a stately "pedal progression."No wonder Oscar laughed; but when Spunkie joined the group, the SaintBernard could not contain himself, and he must needs roll the terrierinto the lee scuppers. "Just look at him!" Oscar seemed to cry; "why,he's all coat together; no eyes, no tail, no nothing! Who's for a gameat football? Hurrah!" At this moment Ralph came on deck, and joinedthe group to see what all the fun was about. He had been down belowhaving a bit of lunch. His presence seemed at once to bring themerriment to a sudden climax, for there was no mistake about it, Ralphhad been getting stouter of late, though it had never struck anybodybefore. But now the moment they glanced at him both his friends wentinto fits. Allan laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes, and he hadto lean against the bulwarks and hold his sides. Rory was worse; he wasbent double like a jack-knife, and had to raise his right leg and slaphis knee a dozen times before he was anything like composed. Meanwhile,poor quiet Ralph's face, as he gazed wonderingly first at one and thenat the other, was a perfect study.
"Have you _both_ gone out of your minds?" he inquired at last.
"No, no?" cried Rory, "we're laughing at you; you've got so fa--fa--fat!Ha! ha! ha!"
"You're perfectly obese?" laughed Allan.
"He's perfectly podgy, bedad!" cried Rory, turning Ralph round and roundto examine him.
Seth looked on at the fun, chewing the end of a capstan bar, and Oscarkept on rolling Spunkie in the scuppers, but when McBain joined thegroup order was somewhat restored.
"Boys," said McBain, smiling, "I declare to you I see a change in youall; one needn't laugh at the other. Oh, don't look at me! I know I'madding inches to my waist, and so is Allan. And as for you, boy Rory--"
"Yes," said Rory, "as for me?"
"You're rotund already," said McBain.
"No more shape than a sun-fish," added Ralph, revengefully.
Of course, after so daring a remark Ralph had to run for it, and so awayhe went, scampering along the deck with Rory in hot pursuit, but he hadto save himself by making a back, over which Rory vaulted, and placedhimself in position a few yards beyond.
"Oh?" cried Allan, "if it's leapfrog, I'm in too."
And off he went, bounding like a deer over Ralph, and over Rory.
"Keep the pot a-boiling!" cried Ralph.
And so, with many a shout and many a joke, round and round the_Snowbird's_ deck vaulted and ran our merry boy-heroes; but when it cameto shoulders high, then their increase in bulk--the "perwision o'Natur'," as Seth termed it--told a tale. Ralph cleared Rory, butfloundered over Allan, then Rory jumped on top of them both, and thewhole three went rolling over on the deck, and Oscar and the wolf andthe little Skye, who had been making bears of them, and legging them,all got mixed.
They extricated themselves at last, and then settled seriously to work.Off went their jackets.
"No more high leaps," cried Ralph.
But behold, the fun gets infectious. McBain has joined the group, thenStevenson and Mitchell, and the mate of the _Trefoil_, and in less timethan I take to tell it, there was a complete circle round the deck ofthe _Snowbird_. Every man Jack was there; it was pleasure without end;it was wonderful. But to see the performance of old Ap! In his flightaround the charmed circle he leaped all in a piece, as it were, but heseemed positively to rebound like a cricket-ball; to ricochet like asshot upon water. Even Seth, with his long legs, who went about the gameas if it were a matter of life and death, confessed afterwards thatneither kids nor kangaroos were a circumstance to Ap.
And so on they went for half-an-hour and over; and had you gazed on thatmad, merry scene, you would have declared that all hands had taken leaveof their senses. No, you wouldn't, though, for you would have joinedthe fun yourself.
"I reckon," said Seth, after the ship had resumed its wonted calm, "thatalthough we are going to be soldered up up here all winter, we ain'tgoing to let down our hearts about it."
Now although the new hall was complete, and Ap had almost finished thelast chair in it, it must not be supposed that the officers and crew ofthe _Snowbird_ were idle. By no means; every day was now precious.They were as busy laying up stores as the Alpine hare. Stores of woodto burn, and stores of fresh provisions in case of emergency. The deerthey shot, and one or two of the younger and smaller bison, were cut upwith great precision and exactness by the old trapper, and the carcassesafterwards lashed against the masts in the fore and main tops to befrozen, and thus to remain fresh throughout the coming winter.
One morning, just after such a sunset as I tried to describe in lastchapter, when Rory and Allan went on deck for their matutinal run beforebreakfast, they found, to their astonishment, that the shore and thetrees, ay, and the ship itself, were clad in dazzling white. Not snow,though, but hoar-frost; only it was a hoar-frost such as it had neverentered into their minds to imagine the like of. The sky seemedovercast with a strange purplish haze that hid the distant hills, andonly revealed the scenery in the immediate neighbourhood. There wasn'ta breath of wind. There was silence everywhere shoreward, broken onlynow and then by the sullen splash of some giant sea mammal diving intothe dark waters. And the hoar-frost kept falling, falling, falling.
It was a downfall of snow-stars and their spiculae; but these alightedon everything--on the sheets and shrouds and every horizontal spar,making them look five times their usual thickness; and the whole shipappeared as if enchanted; the men's caps were white, their clothes werewhite, and their beards and hair, so that they looked like old, old men.
A great silvery-haired animal crept softly along the deck. Was it apolar bear? No, it was Oscar. He looked up in their faces with hisplaintive brown eyes, as if beseeching them to tell him what it allmeant.
But when, about an hour afterwards, they came on deck again and lookedabout them, they found that the purple mist had all cleared off, andthat the sun was shining in a bright blue sky, towering high into whichwere the dazzling hills. The scene was extraordinary; it was magical,glorious. No snow that ever fell could have changed the landscape asthose falling snow-stars had; for every twiglet, stem, and branch waswhite and silvery, and radiant as the sun itself, and the pines andsoft-leaved trees were clad in a foliage more beautiful than that ofsummer itself.
It was a scene such as few men ever behold, and which but once to see isto remember for ever and ay.
It faded at last, though, as everything lovely does fade in this world,and before twelve of the clock the hoar-frost had melted and fallen fromthe branches, like showers of radiant diamonds.
Away through the dripping woodlands went Rory, Ralph, and Allan, inpursuit of game. Seth was to spend the day in fishing, for ere long thewaters would be frozen over, and but few fish to be had, so all thosethat had been taken during the past week had been carefully salted,dried in smoke, and stored away.
; With our three heroes this afternoon went a party of men with arudely-constructed sledge, to bring back a load of logs for the generalstore.
"Who is the laziest of us three, I wonder?" said Ralph, as soon as theyhad got to the high ground, and the men had commenced to wood.
"Oh, I am, I think," said Allan. "That leapfrog business is too muchfor a fat old fellow like me."
"Very well," said Ralph, "for once in a way we'll grant that you areright, so you just stop and keep the `b'ars' from the working party, andRory and I will go down to the creek and see if we can't find a duck ortwo."
"All right," said Allan; and down he sat on a fallen tree, and pulling abook