Here I felt for a moment as if all the
snow of the universe had piled in. As I said, I was so
completely baffled that I could have turned the horses
then and there.
But after a minute or two my eyes began to cast about.
I turned to the south, right into the dense underbrush
and towards the creek which here swept south in a long,
flat curve. Peter was always intolerant of anything that
moved underfoot. He started to bolt when the dry and
hard-frozen stems snapped and broke with reports resembling
pistol shots. But since Dan kept quiet, I held Peter well
in hand. I went along the drift for maybe three to four
hundred yards, reconnoitring. Then the trees began to
stand too dense for me to proceed without endangering my
cutter. Just beyond I saw the big trough of the creek
bed, and though I could not make out how conditions were
at its bottom, the drift continued on its southern bank,
and in any case it was impossible to cross the hollow.
So I turned; I had made up my mind to try the drift.
About a hundred and fifty yards from the point where I
had turned off the road there was something like a fold
in the flank of the drift.
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