wards the east. There the drift,
not being packed by any previous traffic, went entirely to pieces under
their feet. I had meanwhile thrown off my robes, determined at all costs
to bring them to a stop, for I knew, if I allowed them to get away with
me this time, they would be spoiled for any further drives of mine.

Now just the very fraction of a second when I got my feet up against the
dashboard so as to throw my whole weight into my pull, they reared up
as if for one tremendous and supreme bound, and simultaneously I saw a
fence post straight under the cutter pole. Before I quite realized it,
the horses had already cleared the fence. I expected the collision, the
breaking of the drawbar and the bolting of the horses; but just then
my desperate effort in holding them told, and dancing and fretting
they stood. Then, in a flash, I mentally saw and understood the whole
situation. The runners of the cutter, still held up by the snow of the
drift which sloped down into the field and which the horses had churned
into slabs and clods, had struck the fence wire and, lifting the whole
of the conveyance, had placed me; cutter and all, balanced for a moment
to a nicety, on top of the post. But already we began to settle back.

I felt that I could not delay, for a moment later the runners would slip
off the wire and the cutter fall backward; that was the certain signal
for the horses to bolt. The very paradoxicality of the situation seemed
to give me a clue. I clicked my tongue and, holding the horses back with
my last ounce of strength, made them slowly dance forward and pull me
over the fence. In a moment I realized that I had made a mistake. A
quick pull would have jerked me clear of the post. As it was, it slowly
grated along the bottom of the box; then the cutter tilted forward, and
when the runners slipped off the wire, the cutter with myself pitched
back with a frightful knock against the post. The back panel of the box
still shows the splintered tear that fence post made. The shock of it
threw me forward, for a second I lost all purchase on the lines, and
again the horses went off in a panic. It was quite dark now, for the
clouds were thickening in the sky. While I attended to the horses, I
reflected that probably something had broken back there in the cutter,
but worst of all, I realized that this incident, for the time being
at least, had completely broken my nerve. As soon as I had brought the
horses to a stop, I turn