The flakes were falling faster now, but they were so fine that they
would have scarcely counted had it not been for the number of them.
At the end of the next half-hour the fall was like a fog of
whirling atoms, and the travellers looked like moving snow figures.
The dogs were still running well, and Katherine found it hard work
to keep them back, especially on the slopes, where they would
persist in trying to make rushes, so getting thoroughly out of
hand. She was keeping them back down one long bad slope which
abounded in pitfalls, when to her horror she heard her father cry
out, then saw him and his sledge disappear, shooting into a
whirling smother of snow.

[Illustration: 'Duke Radford meets with an accident]

With a sharp order to the dogs to stop, which they promptly obeyed
by dropping in four panting heaps on the snow, she went forward
alone to see what had happened to her father. It was a simple
enough accident, and one that had to be constantly guarded against
in drawing a sledge when travelling on snowshoes. In going down
the slope the sledge had travelled proportionally faster than the
man, and, catching against the framework of one of the snowshoes,
had flung him with tremendous force between two trees. The trees,
which were really two shoots from one root, grew so close together
that when 'Duke Radford was pitched in between them he was wedged
fast by the force of the impact, while the sledge, coming on
behind, bounded on to his prostrate body. He groaned when
Katherine dragged the sledge away, and cried out with the pain when
she tried to help him out.

"Did it hurt you so badly? Oh, I am sorry! But I will be more