"Because it's a sign we're going to have a long, hard winter," went on the man, who was rather an odd character, and a great believer in signs of various kinds. "It's a sure sign of a hard winter when it snows just before the new moon," Jed went on. "It'll be new moon to-night, and we're going to have quite a storm. Besides it's down in my almanack that we're going to have a bad spell of weather about now. I shouldn't wonder but what we'd have quite a fall before morning," and certainly it seemed so, for the flurry was increasing.