FOLLOWING THE TRAIL 135 



ready. He did this again and again, whilst beat- 

 ing the tussocky ground on the farther bank of 

 the stream, where the otters had stayed to quest 

 before crossing the unbroken expanse of snow 

 that stretched to the foot of the hill. 



At every stride now he was getting more and 

 more under shelter of the land ; every score yards 

 the snow was becoming appreciably deeper and 

 deeper, until at last it lay in a big drift that 

 threatened to bar his way. A break in the 

 embankment, fluted and escalloped by the wind, 

 showed where the otters had tunnelled their way 

 through ; and the old man, sanguine as to their 

 near neighbourhood, after blowing on his numbed 

 fingers, tightened his grip on the barrels and 

 determined to follow. As the drift was formid- 

 able enough to daunt a younger and a taller man, 

 he twice shrank from committing himself to the 

 smothering mass. But again the thought of the 

 golden sovereign, now as he believed so nearly 

 his, lured him on : he held the gun above his 

 head, went at the yielding obstacle, sank in it, 

 disappeared all but hand and gun, fought with it, 

 and at last battled through. Furiously brushing 

 the snow out of his eyes, he looked eagerly to 

 right and to left, thinking the game was afoot 

 and striving to escape ; but among the laid reeds 



