But
during the interval that elapsed between our getting into the swampy
creek and getting out of it a great change had come over the weather.
While poor Possum was being chastised I had been reclining on the bank
hard by, and occasionally interceding for the unhappy animal, the men
were all at him (but what is one to do if one's dray is buried nearly to
the axle in a bog, and Possum won't pull?); so I was taking it easy,
without coat or waistcoat, and even then feeling as if no place could be
too cool to please me, for the nor'-wester was still blowing strong and
intensely hot, when suddenly I felt a chill, and looking at the lake
below saw that the white-headed waves had changed their direction, and
that the wind had chopped round to sou'-west.
We left the dray and went on some two or three miles on foot for the
purpose of camping where there was firewood. There was a hut, too, in
the place for which we were making. It was not yet roofed, and had
neither door nor window; but as it was near firewood and water we made
for it, had supper, and turned in.
In the middle of the night someone, poking his nose out of his blanket,
informed us that it was snowing, and in the morning we found it
continuing to do so, with a good sprinkling on the ground.
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