The New Year at Gunnison Island

The New Year at Gunnison Island Dreary is the land and dreary is the sea. More trying are the silent, implacable hours, than are the times of uproar. For New Year's Greeting, I heard only the shrill, sudden call of the gull or the dry, harsh croak of the passing raven. In the stillness the bitter cold frets the surface of wind-drift and level, the storm clouds hang low ; or, slowly the big snow-

Hakes fall out of the sky. On the mountains, today, a wind- storm is raging. So fierce up there is the gale, one could scarcely keep his footing. The great snow-banners are whirled from the crests, and grand and solemn, I know, is the sound, when the strong northern winds smite upon those harps, the pines, and when, along the mountain sides, the loosened snow is caught from the forest branches and sent madly up by crag and ravine. But see How the wind can !

revel on these waters, too! Behold how the} sweep over the -

long reaches Of unbroken brine; how they pick up the foam- dust from the waves of the Inland Sea, and, mixing it with snow-dust from the island cliffs, whirl it around and around! Yesterday the sun-dogs erlearr.ed river the desert hills — but

now? The sleet and snow, the foam and spray, are driven by these winter winds.

A feeling of awe is upon me. Often, as in the Norse mythology, the sun comes up, all faint and wan, sick nigh unto death it seems, and languidly looks o'er the world of white. What thoughts are mine! In the dim, uncertain, and mysterious twilight, when all surrounding objects expand to the sight, I half expect to see, looking upon me from out the western desert, some angry deity of the Indians' forgotten pantheon ; or, as my thoughts revert again to the olden world, to see, springing from that Nifelheim in the north, the gaunt, gray form of Fenris Wolf, and to behold his fiery eyes as he passes onward to his terrible feast, when the Asas, Odin and Thor, and the lesser ones, too, shall become his prey in Rag- narok, the last, weird twilight of the Northern gods.

Tonight the wind roars. What care I ? The louder the rumble in the spacious chimney, the brighter will burn my drift-wood fire. One must oppose his resources of mind to the blind anger of nature, and trust to prevail in the end. What to me, in this comfortable room, if the wind grows furious in its strength, and beats and clamors at window and door? No sail, I know, is out on this winter sea. What if the waves boom by the Northern Cliff if the wind veer ;

again and drive the foam far up the sands of the little bay? There will be no need to hang out the signal lamp. The Inland Sea, and the bleak, inhospitable season, will keep both my island and myself in unbroken ostracism. The sleet and the hail may lash against the window-panes, but it is only such as might have been foreseen. There must pass many and. many a day ere the yacht will put forth. So, stir the embers of the smoldering fire let the red sparks fly, remem- ;

ber that thy food is safe-cached, and that the hut is firm- planted and strong as the gale.

From "Our Inland Sea; The Story of a Homestead." By Alfred Lam nor km:.