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‘Joe came to a stop at the bottom of this great mass of snow—a hundred yards long, ten deep, and maybe twenty to thirty wide.

‘“I’ve been out since daylight looking up the sheep, and there’s fifty-eight missing—twenty-eight of mine and thirty of yours. My dogs scented a few in Yew-tree Ghyll, and one or two nigh Borwen’s Knott, but I hadn’t time to dig any of them out. However, I think that the best part of them that is missing are in this ghyll, and maybe we’d better try to get the nearer ones out now.”

‘A pair of spades were going very shortly in an outlying patch, where the dogs had marked a buried sheep. The snow was dry, and flew in great clouds like powder. I was watching the others at work. The breeze was—well, I said its first sweep was a marvel for coldness, and I thought it wasn’t possible for wind to be more bitter. But as the minutes went on, it grew decidedly worse, so I took shelter behind a big rock. Of course, a wind could hardly blow over many a weary mile of snow and then be anything but freezing itself. I whistled for the dogs, but they didn’t come, and in a few minutes, wondering what mischief they were up to, I ventured out. Was that old Dobbin ranging on the road half a mile away? I whistled my hardest—dogs can pick up a further sound than a man, as any shepherd knows: it stopped a moment, then turned and leathered heedlessly away. Black, Nan, and Bob were also on the road galloping for home. I couldn’t understand it, so called Joe up. He was puzzled as well.