" The snow was melted from the top of Salaman's dump, and his guests had no difficulty in picking several rough little bits of gold out of the thawing gravel.

" It had been thawing and freezing, freezing and thawing, for so long that men lost account of the advance of a summer coming, with such balked, uncertain steps.

Everywhere, big and small, there were the rushing torrents of melting snows and the crackle of crumbling ice, the dying cries of thawing rock and earth and tree, and each night for many nights past the cold pale glow of the aurora borealis had crept farther and farther toward the Pole in fading glory.

They do not always find manors, got by rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the poets will have it; or that all gold glides, like thawing snow, from the thief's hand that grasps it.

They were half-famished, as teams in the Lone Lands usually are, and the smell of the frozen fish thawing before the fire set them frantic.

The dogs sat round in a half-circle watching them and the frozen fish thawing before the fire.

No fish were thawing before the heat, for dogs are fed only once a day.

But I know of nothing more saddening than dull, thawing weather: I hate the damp fogs which weigh one's shoulders down.

The snow was now somewhat firmer than when the first party had crossed, owing to the top of the snow thawing slightly in the sun every day and being frozen hard again every night; all the same, the slightest divergence from the track plunged us up to our waists in snow.

We could but now and then catch a glimpse of the scenery through our coach window by thawing a place in the thickly covered glass, which was so plated with the arborescent frost as not to yield to the warmth of the sun at midday.

" To the end of April, and often later, one still finds remains of snowbanks in sheltered woods, especially those consisting of evergreen trees; and this snow, like that upon high mountains, has become hardened by the repeated thawing and freezing of the surface, till it is more impenetrable than ice.

The floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through the roof.

"No, American," said I. "Oh, that's all right," said he, his manner instantly thawing.

"She's been thawing pretty fast as it is.

In three directions this slope was very steep, but in one it slanted up quite gradually, and the constant thawing had grooved the surface with a thousand irregularities by which an active man could ascend.

The most icy reserve must find itself cracked and thawing in the intimacies which a jerking railway car precipitates.

Father Winter sadly said To the world, when about withdrawing, With his old white wig half off his head, And his icicle fingers thawing; "Adieu!

All socks, finnesko, and mits had long been coated with ice; placed in breast pockets or inside vests at night they did not even show signs of thawing, much less of drying.

A great deal of the underlying ice is exposed, but we had doubts as to whether this ice was not the result of winter drifting and summer thawing.

The Woman, almost rigid, had also been lifted out, and after thawing a little, was busily engaged in applying soothing remedies to a badly scarred cheek and chin; for the Big Man was due at any moment, and his facetious comments on the unpleasant results of her "pleasure trips" had become time-honored, if unwelcome, family jokes.

Tayoga was the first to awake, and he saw the dawn of a new winter day, the earth reeking with cold damp and the thawing snow.

As she received this deed, she fell on one knee, and kissed her venerable father's hand, after which he raised and embraced her, paternal affection and paternal pride acting like the genial warmth of the sun, in thawing the frost of his heart and frame.

There was a lot of it on the deck of the Olympia thawing when I was a visitor; and the beef was "delicious."

Until the thawing of the snow I faithfully worked upon the section, but when Spring again set in with full force, there came another attack of the strange fever that drove me onward every year, and, following the "Call of the Wanderlust", I left for the South, having again promised that with the approach of winter I would be on hand to fill my place with the section crew.

" "Of whom you are making a Giotto?" asked Julius, thawing a little.