a blizzard and in pitch darkness,
and with no visible landmarks, it is not easy to double back on one's
route, with any degree of accuracy. In Cyril's case, the thing was
wholly impossible.

Blindly, he had been traveling in an erratic half-circle. Another
minute of walking would have brought him to the highroad, not far from
the Place's gateway. And, as he changed his course, to seek the road,
he moved at an obtuse angle to his former line of march.

Thus, another period of exhausting progress brought him up with a bump
against a solid barrier. His chilled face came into rough contact with
the top rail of a line fence.

So relieved was the startled child by this encounter that he forgot to
whine at the abrasion wrought upon his cheek by the rail. He had begun
to feel the first gnawings of panic. Now, at once, he was calm again.
For he knew where he was. This was the line fence between the Place's
upper section and the land of the next neighbor.

All he need do was to walk along in the shelter of it, touching the
rails now and then to make certain of not straying, until he should
come out on the road, at the gate lodge. It was absurdly easy; compared
to what he had been undergoing. Besides, the lee of the fence afforded
a certain shelter from wind and snow. The child realized he had been
turned about in the dark; and had been going in the wrong direction.
But now, at last, his course seemed plain to him.

So he set off briskly, close to the fence;--and directly away from the
nearby road.

For another half-hour he continued his inexplicably long tramp; always
buoyed up by the hope of coming to the road in a few more steps; and
doggedly sure of his bearings. Then, turning out from the fence, in
order to skirt a wide hazel thicket, he tripped over an outcrop of
rock, and tumbled into a drift. Getting to his feet, he sought to
regain the fence; but the fall had shaken his senses and he floundered
off in the opposite direction. After a rod or two of such futile
plunging, a stumbling step took him clean off the edge of the world,
and into the air.

All this, for the merest instant. Then, he landed with a jounce in a
heap of brush and dead leaves. Squatting there, breathless, he
stretched out his mittened hand, along the ground. At the end of less
than another yard of this exploring, his fingers came again to the edge
of the world and were thrust out over nothingness.

With hideous suddenness, Cyril understood where