SNOW 193 
and they set forth again at daybreak to seek 
the remainder of the flock. The face of the 
country was perfectly transformed: not a hill 
was the same, not a brook or lake could be re- 
cognized. Deep glens were filled in with snow, 
covering the very tops of the trees; and over 
a hundred acres of ground, under an average 
depth of six or eight feet, they were to look for 
four or five hundred sheep. The attempt would 
have been hopeless but for a dog that accom- 
panied them. Seeing their perplexity, he began 
snuffing about, and presently scratched in the 
snow at a certain point, then looked round at 
his master. And on digging at this spot they 
found a sheep beneath. And so the dog led 
them all day, bounding eagerly from one place 
to another, much faster than they could dig the 
creatures out, so that he sometimes had twenty 
or thirty holes marked beforehand. In this 
way, within a week, they got out every sheep 
on the farm except four, these last being buried 
under a mountain of snow fifty feet deep, on 
the top of which the dog had marked their 
places again and again. In every case the 
sheep proved to be alive and warm, though half 
suffocated ; on being taken out, they usually 
bounded away swiftly, and then fell helplessly 
in a few moments, overcome by the change of 
atmosphere ; some then died almost instantly, 
