At its foot I stopped. For a
moment I tried to explain that fold to myself. This is
what I arrived at. North of the drift, just about where
the new cut-out joined the east-west grade, there was a
small clearing caused by a bush fire which a few years
ago had penetrated thus far into this otherwise virgin
corner of the forest. Unfortunately it stood so full of
charred stumps that it was impossible to get through
there. But the main currents of the wind would have free
play in this opening, and I knew that, when the blizzard
began, it had been blowing from a more northerly quarter
than later on, when it veered to the northwest. And though
the snow came careering along the lane of the cut-out,
that is, from due north, its "throw" and therefore, the
direction of the drift would be determined by the direction
of the wind that took charge of it on this clearing.
Probably, then, a first, provisional drift whose long
axis lay nearly in a north-south line, had been piled up
by the first, northerly gale. Later a second, larger
drift had been superimposed upon it at an angle, with
its main axis running from the northwest to the southeast.
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