umor, and perhaps disappointed in love. No clue was too small to be
overlooked--and so, feeling himself one of the most deadly of sleuths,
Mr. Neelands walked joyously on, while behind him there gathered one
of the worst blizzards that the Souris Valley has known.

The storm began with great blobbery flakes of snow, which came
elbowing each other down the wind, crossing and re-crossing, circling,
drifting, whirling, fluttering, so dense and thick that the whole air
darkened ominously, and the sun seemed to withdraw from the world,
leaving the wind and the storm to their own evil ways.

The wind at once began its circling motions, whipping the snow
into the traveller's face, blinding and choking him, lashing him
mercilessly and with a sudden impish delight, as if all the evil
spirits of the air had declared war upon him.

He turned to look back, but the storm had closed behind him, having
come down from the northwest and overtaken him as he walked. His only
hope was to go with it, for to face it was impossible, and yet it
seemed to have no direction, for it blew up in his face; it fell on
him; it slapped him, jostled him, pushed him, roared in his ears,
smothering him, drowning his cries with malicious joy. No cat ever
worried or harrassed a mouse with greater glee than the storm fiends
that frolicked through the valley that day, took their revenge on the
city man, with his pointed boots, his silk-lined gloves, his belted
coat and gray fedora, as he struggled on, slipping, choking, falling
and rising. It seemed to him like a terrible nightmare, in its sudden,
gripping fury.

It pounded on his eyeballs until he was not sure but his eyes were
gone; it filled his mouth and ears, and cold water trickled down his
back. His gloves were wet through, and freezing, for the air grew
colder every minute, and the terror of the drowning man came to him.
He struggled on madly, like a steer that feels the muskeg closing
around him. He did not think; he fought, with the same instinct that
drives the cattle blindly, madly on towards shelter and food, when the
storm lashes them and the hunger rage drives them on.

Sylvester Paine, shaking the snow from his clothes like a water
spaniel, and stamping all over the kitchen, was followed by his wife,
who vainly tried to sweep it up as fast as it fell. She made no
remonstrance, but merely swept, having long since earned that her
liege lord was never turned aside from his purpose by any wor