ee whether maybe the lonely dweller was ill. But
then I felt as if I could not be burdened with any stranger's worries
that day.

The effective shelter of the poplar forest along the creek made itself
felt. The last mile to the northeast was peaceful driving. I felt quite
cheered, though I walked the horses over the whole of the mile since
both began to show signs of wear. The last four miles had been a test
to try any living creature's mettle. To me it had been one of the
culminating points in that glorious winter, but the horses had lacked
the mental stimulus, and even I felt rather exhausted.

On the bridge I stopped, threw the blankets over the horses, and fed.
Somehow this seemed to be the best place to do it. There was no snow
to speak of, and I did not know yet what might follow. The horses were
drooping, and I gave them an additional ten minutes' rest. Then I slowly
made ready. I did not really expect any serious trouble.

We turned at a walk, and the chasm of the bush road opened up.
Instantly I pulled the horses in. What I saw, baffled me for a moment
so completely that I just sat there and gasped. There was no road. The
trees to both sides were not so overly high, but the snow had piled in
level with their tops; the drift looked like a gigantic barricade. It
was that fleeting sight of the telephone posts over again, though on a
slightly smaller scale; but this time it was in front. Slowly I started
to whistle and then looked around. I remembered now. There was a newly
cut-out road running north past the school which lay embedded in the
bush. It had offered a lane to the wind; and the wind, going there, in
cramped space, at a doubly furious stride, had picked up and carried
along all the loose snow from the grassy glades in its path. The road
ended abruptly just north of the drift, where the east-west grade sprang
up. When the wind had reached this end of the lane, where the bush ran
at right angles to its direction, it had found itself in something
like a blind alley, and, sweeping upward, to clear the obstacle, it had
dropped every bit of its load into the shelter of the brush, gradually,
in the course of three long days, building up a ridge that buried
underbrush and trees. I might have known it, of course. I knew enough
about snow; all the conditions for an exceptionally large drift were
provided for here. But it had not occurred to me, especially after I had
found the northern fringe of the marsh so wel