The Long Portage by Harold Bindloss

It was snowing in the northern wilderness and the bitter air was filled with small, dry flakes, which whirled in filmy clouds athwart the red glow of a fire. A clump of boulders stood outlined beside a frozen river, and behind the boulders a growth of willows rose crusted with snow, while beyond them, barely distinguishable, were the stunted shapes of a few birches. So far the uncertain radiance reached when the fire leaped up, but outside it all was shut in by a dense curtain of falling snow.

It had been dark for some time, and Lisle was getting anxious as he lay, wrapped in a ragged skin coat, in a hollow beside a boulder. A straining tent stood near the fire, but the big stone afforded better shelter, and drawing hard upon his pipe, he listened eagerly. The effort to do so was unpleasant as well as somewhat risky, for he had to turn back the old fur cap from his tingling ears; and he shivered at every variation of the stinging blast. There was nothing to be heard except the soft swish of the snow as it swirled among the stones and the hollow rumble of the river pouring down a rapid beneath a rent bridge of ice.