il he found himself suddenly upon the steep slope where the
bank inclined to the river.

When Bill Carmody turned down-stream the gravity of his undertaking
forced itself upon him. The fury of the storm was like nothing he had
ever experienced.

The wind-whipped particles cut and seared his face like a shower of
red-hot needles, and the air about him was filled with a dull roar,
mighty in volume but strangely muffled by the very denseness of the
snow.

It took all his strength to push himself forward against the terrific
force of the wind which seemed to sweep from every quarter at once into
a whirling vortex of which he himself was the center.

One moment the air was sucked from his lungs by a mighty vacuum, and
the next the terrible compression upon his chest caused him to gasp for
breath.

The fine snow that he inhaled with each breath stung his lungs and he
tied his heavy woolen muffler across his mouth. He stumbled frequently
and floundered about to regain his balance. He lost all sense of
direction and fought blindly on, each bend of the river bringing him
blunderingly against one or the other of its brush-grown banks.

The only thought of his benumbed brain was to make the rock ledge
somewhere ahead. It grew dark, and the blackness, laden with the
blinding, stinging particles, added horror to his bewilderment.

Suddenly his snowshoe struck against a hard object, and he pitched
heavily forward upon his face and lay still. He realized then that he
was tired.

Never in his life had he been so utterly body-weary, and the snow was
soft--soft and warm--and the pelting ceased.

He thrust his arm forward into a more comfortable position and
encountered a rock, and sluggishly through his benumbed faculties
passed a train of associated ideas--rock, rock ledge, _loup-cerviers_,
the boy! With a mighty effort he roused himself from the growing
lethargy and staggered blindly to his feet.

He filled his lungs, tore the ice-incrusted muffler from his lips and,
summoning all his strength, gave voice to the long call of the woods:

"Who-o-o-p-e-e-e!"

But the cry was cut off at his lips. The terrific force of the shifting
gusts hurled the sound back into his throat so that it came to his own
ears faint and far. Again and again he called, and each time the feeble
effort was drowned in the dull roar of the storm.

An unreasoning rage at the futility of it overcame him and he plunged
blindly ahead, unheeding, stumbli