suggest the fury of the blast and
of the drift into which we emerged. For a moment I thought the top of
the cutter would be blown off. With the twilight that had set in the
wind had increased to a baffling degree. The horses came as near as they
ever came, in any weather, to turning on me and refusing to face the
gale. And what with my blurred vision, the twisting and dodging about of
the horses, and the gathering dusk, I soon did not know any longer where
I was. There was ample opportunity to go wrong. Copses, single trees,
and burnt stumps which dotted the wilderness had a knack of looming up
with startling suddenness in front or on the side, sometimes dangerously
close to the cutter. It was impossible to look straight ahead, because
the ice crystals which mimicked snow cut right into my eyes and made
my lids smart with soreness. Underfoot the rough ground seemed like a
heaving sea. The horses would stumble, and the cutter would pitch over
from one side to the other in the most alarming way. I saw no remedy.
It was useless to try to avoid the obstacles--only once did I do so, and
that time I had to back away from a high stump against which my drawbar
had brought up. The pitching and rolling of the cutter repeatedly shook
me out of my robes, and if, when starting up again from the bluff, I had
felt a trifle more comfortable, that increment of consolation was soon
lost.

We wallowed about--there is only this word to suggest the motion. To all
intents and purposes I was lost. But still there was one thing, provided
it had not changed, to tell me the approximate direction--the wind.
It had been coming from the south-southeast. So, by driving along very
nearly into its teeth, I could, so I thought, not help emerging on the
road to town.

Repeatedly I wished I had taken the old trail. That fearful drift in the
bush beyond the creek, I thought, surely had settled down somewhat in
twenty-four hours. [Footnote: As a matter of fact I was to see it once
more before the winter was over, and I found it settled down to about
one third its original height. This was partly the result of superficial
thawing. But still even then, shortly before the final thaw-up, it
looked formidable enough.] I had had as much or more of unbroken trail
to-day as on the day before. On the whole, though, I still believed that
the four miles across the corner of the marsh south of the creek had
been without a parallel in their demands on the horses' end