192 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
soon gave out, and was speechless and semi- 
conscious for more than an hour, though he 
afterwards recovered and held out with the rest. 
Two of them lost their head-gear, and Hogg 
himself fell over a high precipice; but they 
reached the flock at half past ten. They found 
the ewes huddled together in a dense body, 
under ten feet of snow, — packed so closely, 
that, to the amazement of the shepherds, when 
they had extricated the first, the whole flock 
walked out one after another, in a body, through 
the hole. 
How they got them home it is almost im- 
possible to tell. It was now noon, and they 
sometimes could see through the storm for 
twenty yards, but they had only one momentary 
glimpse of the hills through all that terrible 
day. Yet Hogg persisted in going by himself 
afterwards to rescue some flocks of his own, 
barely escaping with life from the expedition ; 
his eyes were sealed up with the storm, and he 
crossed a formidable torrent, without knowing 
it, on a wreath of snow. Two of the others 
lost themselves in a deep valley, and would have 
perished but for being accidentally heard by a 
neighboring shepherd, who guided them home, 
where the female portion of the family had 
abandoned all hope of ever seeing them again. 
The next day was clear, with a cold wind, 
