But it is a different thing to face the wilderness for a purpose, to
journey in haste toward a set point, with a penalty swift and sure for
failure to reach that point in due season. Especially is this so in
the high latitudes. Natural barriers uprear before the traveler,
barriers which he must scale with sweat and straining muscles. He must
progress by devious ways, seeking always the line of least resistance.
The season of summer is brief, a riot of flowers and vegetation. A
certain number of weeks the land smiles and flaunts gay flowers in the
shadow of the ancient glaciers. Then the frost and snow come back to
their own, and the long nights shut down like a pall.
Brought to it by a kindlier road, Hazel would have found that nook in
the Klappan Range a pleasant enough place. She could not deny its
beauty. It snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all
turreted and battlemented with ledge and pinnacle of rock, from which
ran huge escarpments clothed with spruce and pine, scarred and gashed
on every hand with slides and deep-worn watercourses, down which
tumultuous streams rioted their foamy way. And nestled amid this, like
a precious stone in its massive setting, a few hundred acres of level,
grassy turf dotted with trees.
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