yet was I--the feeling of other-worldliness, if you will pardon the
word, ever fade from my memory--a feeling of having been carried beyond
my depth where I could not swim--which came over me when with two quick
glances to right and left I took in the fact that there were no longer
any trees to either side, that I was above that forest world which had
so often engulfed me.

Then I drew my lines in. The horses fought against it, did not want to
stand. But I had to find my way, and while they were going, I could not
take my eyes from them. It took a supreme effort on my part to make them
obey. At last they stood, but I had to hold them with all my strength,
and with not a second's respite. Now that I was on top of the drift,
the problem of how to get down loomed larger than that of getting up had
seemed before. I knew I did not have half a minute in which to decide
upon my course; for it became increasingly difficult to hold the horses
back, and they were fast sinking away.

During this short breathing spell I took in the situation. We had come
up in a northeast direction, slanting along the slope. Once on top, I
had instinctively turned to the north. Here the drift was about twenty
feet wide, perfectly level and with an exfoliated surface layer. To the
east the drift fell steeply, with a clean, smooth cliff-line marking
off the beginning of the descent; this line seemed particularly
disconcerting, for it betrayed the concave curvature of the down-sweep.
A few yards to the north I saw below, at the foot of the cliff, the old
logging-trail, and I noticed that the snow on it lay as it had fallen,
smooth and sheer, without a ripple of a drift. It looked like mockery.
And yet that was where I had to get down.

The next few minutes are rather a maze in my memory. But two pictures
were photographed with great distinctness. The one is of the moment when
we went over the edge. For a second Peter reared up, pawing the air with
his forefeet; Dan tried to back away from the empty fall. I had at this
excruciating point no purchase whatever on the lines. Then apparently
Peter sat or fell down, I do not know which, on his haunches and began
to slide. The cutter lurched to the left as if it were going to spill
all it held. Dan was knocked off his hind feet by the drawbar--and
we plunged... We came to with a terrific jolt that sent me in a
heap against the dashboard. One jump, and I stood on the ground. The
cutter--and this is the sec