, I bought myself enough canned goods to feed me for a week should
through any untoward accident the need arise. I always carried a little
alcohol stove, and with my tarpaulin I could convert my cutter within
three minutes into a windproof tent. Cramped quarters, to be sure, but
better than being given over to the wind at thirty below!

More than any remark on the part of friends or acquaintances one fact
depressed me when I went home. There was not a team in town which had
come in from the country. The streets were deserted: the stores were
empty. The north wind and the snow had the town to themselves.

On Thursday the weather was unchanged. On the way to the school I had to
scale a snowdrift thrown up to a height of nearly six feet, and, though
it was beginning to harden, from its own weight and the pressure of the
wind, I still broke in at every step and found the task tiring in the
extreme. I did my work, of course, as if nothing oppressed me, but in my
heart I was beginning to face the possibility that, even if I tried,
I might fail to reach my goal. The day passed by. At noon the
school-children, the teachers, and a few people hurrying to the
post-office for their mail lent a fleeting appearance of life to the
streets. It nearly cheered me; but soon after four the whole town again
took on that deserted look which reminded me of an abandoned mining
camp. The lights in the store windows had something artificial
about them, as if they were merely painted on the canvas-wings of a
stage-setting. Not a team came in all day.

On Friday morning the same. Burroughs would have said that the weather
had gone into a rut. Still the wind whistled and howled through the
bleak, dark, hollow dawn; the snow kept coming down and piling up, as
if it could not be any otherwise. And as if to give notice of its
intentions, the drift had completely closed up my front door. I fought
my way to the school and thought things over. My wife and I had agreed,
if ever the weather should be so bad that there was danger in going at
night, I was to wait till Saturday morning and go by daylight. Neither
one of us ever mentioned the possibility of giving the attempt up
altogether. My wife probably understood that I would not bind myself by
any such promise. Now even on this Friday I should have liked to go by
night, if for no other reason, than for the experience's sake; but I
reflected that I might get lost and not reach home at all. The horses
kn