Beyond the top of the next hill there hung from sky to earth
the curtain, thick, black, portentous, and swiftly making approach,
devouring the landscape as it came and filling his ears with its
muffled, hissing roar.
In the coulee beyond that hill was the spot he had marked for his
shelter. It was still some three hundred yards away. Could he beat that
roaring, hissing, portentous cloud mass? It was extremely doubtful. Down
the hill he ran, slipping, skating, pitching, till he struck the bottom,
then up the opposite slope he struggled, straining every nerve and
muscle. He glanced upward towards the top of the hill. Merciful heaven!
There it was, that portentous cloud mass, roaring down upon him. Could
he ever make that top? He ran a few steps further, then, dropping his
gun, he clutched a small poplar and hung fast. A driving, blinding,
choking, whirling mass of whiteness hurled itself at him, buffeting him
heavily, filling eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, clutching at his arms and
legs and body with a thousand impalpable insistent claws. For a moment
or two he lost all sense of direction, all thought of advance. One
instinct only he obeyed--to hold on for dear life to the swaying
quivering poplar. The icy cold struck him to the heart, his bare fingers
were fast freezing. A few moments he hung, hoping for a lull in the fury
of the blizzard, but lull there was none, only that choking, blinding,
terrifying Thing that clutched and tore at him.
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