--I
could not help thinking of the "cruel, crawling foam" and the ruminating
pedant Ruskin, and I laughed. "The cruel, crawling snow!" Yes, and in
spite of Ruskin and his "Pathetic Fallacy," there it was! Of course, the
snow is not cruel. Of course, it merely is propelled by something
which, according to Karl Pearson, I do not even with a good scientific
conscience dare to call a "force" any longer. But nevertheless, it made
the impression of cruelty, and in that lay its fascination and beauty.
It even reminded me of a cat slowly reaching out with armed claw for the
"innocent" bird. But the cat is not cruel either--we merely call it so!
Oh, for the juggling of words!...

Suddenly my horses brought up on a farmyard. They had followed the last
of the church-goers' trails, had not seen any other trail ahead and
faithfully done their horse-duty by staying on what they considered to
be the road.

I had reached the northern limit of that two-mile stretch of wild land.
In summer there is a distinct and good road here, but for the present
the snow had engulfed it. When I had turned back to the bend of the
trail, I was for the first time up against a small fraction of what was
to come. No trail, and no possibility of telling the direction in which
I was going! Fortunately I realized the difficulty right from the start.
Before setting out, I looked back to the farm and took my bearings from
the fence of the front yard which ran north-south. Then I tried to hold
to the line thus gained as best I could. It was by no means an easy
matter, for I had to wind my weary way around old and new drifts, brush
and trees. The horses were mostly up to their knees in snow, carefully
lifting their hindlegs to place them in the cavities which their
forelegs made. Occasionally, much as I tried to avoid it, I had to make
a short dash through a snow dam thrown up over brush that seemed to
encircle me completely. The going, to be sure, was not so heavy as it
had been the day before on the corner of the marsh, but on the other
hand I could not see as far beyond the horses' heads. And had I been
able to see, the less conspicuous landmarks would not have helped
me since I did not know them. It took us about an hour to cross this
untilled and unfenced strip. I came out on the next crossroad, not
more than two hundred yards east of where I should have come out. I
considered that excellent; but I soon was to understand that it was
owing only to the fact