eyes the imaginary lines to an intersecting point
some thirty feet from Troy's original sighting.

"Hand me the heat tank, doctor," Troy said, turning his back to Alec,
"so that we can excavate the patient." Alec unclamped a hand tank and
nozzle device from his pack.

With the tank slung under his arm and with nozzle in hand, Troy moved
forward another ten feet, gauging the wind velocity. He aimed to the
windward of the intersecting lines and triggered the nozzle. A stream
of liquid chemical melting agent shot out into the wind and then
curved back and cut a hole into the snow. Troy moved the nozzle in a
slow arc, making a wide circle in the snow. Then he cut a trough on
the downhill side for more than twenty feet. He adjusted the nozzle
head and a wider stream sprayed out to fall within the already-melting
circle. The concentrated solution was diluted with melting water and
spread its action. As the hydrologists watched, the snow melted into a
deep hole and the chemically-warmed water torrented down the drain cut
to gush out on to the snow slope and quickly refreeze as it emerged
into the sub-zero air.

Troy shut off the liquid and the two men waited and watched. "The
gauge was recording ninety-seven inches of pack when it quit," Alec
said. "Better give 'er another squirt."

Troy fired another spray burst of chemical into the now-deep hole and
then widened the drain trough once more.

Then he began spraying a three-foot wide patch from the edge of the
hole back towards himself. Immediately a new trough began to form in
the snow pack and the water poured off into the hole surrounding the
buried gauge.

While the snow was melting, Alec had removed his skis and stuck them
upright in the snow. He dropped his pack and unfastened a pair of
mountain-climber's ice crampons and lashed them to his ski boots. In
five minutes Troy had "burned" a sloping, ice-glazed ramp deep into
the snow field, sloping down into a ten-foot deep chasm and
terminating on bare wet soil. Sitting on the ground, slightly off
center to one side of the original hole was the foot-round gray metal
shape of radiation snow gauge P11902-87. A half-inch round tube
projected upwards for three inches from the center of the round
device.

* * * * *

Alec was down in the ice chasm, ski pole reversed in his hand.
Standing as far from the gauge as possible, he dangled a leaden cap
from the end of his ski pole over the proje