At the time Savanukah felt a
certain, malicious pride in the old man's keenness and poise and
capacity, and he said apart to the inquisitive bystanders that, as might
have been expected, the big bird, Tsiskwa-yah, had pounced upon the
little bird, Tscholen-tit--for the name of each signifies a bird in
their respective languages, and the suffixes imply great and small. And
mightily pleased was Savanukah with his own wit.
That night came a sudden change. A keen frost was falling soon after the
sun went down, for the wind was laid, and such a chill glittering white
moon came gliding out of the mists about the dark Great Smoky domes that
it seemed the winter incarnate. All adown the desert aisles of the
leafless woods the light lay with a flocculent glister like snow, so
enhanced was its whiteness in the rare air and the blackness of the
forest shadows--spare, clearly drawn, all filar and fine like the
intricacies of a delicate line engraving. Something that the daylight
might have shown, blue and blurred, was about the mountains; it followed
the progress of that wintry moon westward. Presently, drawn up from
across the ranges, it proved to be a purple cloud, and despite the broad
section of the heavens still clear and the glittering whorls of the
constellations, that cloud held snow.
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