Suddenly a greenish-yellow darkness poured over the forest, and the snow gushed down like a cloudburst. Flakes the size of your hand, wet and heavy, flew whirling by so thickly that the dividing line between earth and air was lost. A man cannot see a step in front of him. He breathes the flakes in, wades on through the roaring blizzard that dashes high over his head, pushes on blindly as if he were cutting a little passage down there under the snow. He has but one overmastering instinct—to push on. He yearns for one thing only—to breathe something other than snow. He can no longer lift his feet from the snow; he drags them through the drifts reaching half-way to his hips; he makes a track which instantly closes up behind him.

Meanwhile in the cities far below a few sparse flakes fluttered down to be melted into black mud. The lights were lit in the shops, the cafés were all aglow, people sat around under the electric globes and grumbled what a miserable gloomy day it was. Numberless lights were ablaze all over the great city, sparkling in the watery mire.

One solitary glimmer shone over the storm-swept field on the mountain. It pierced with difficulty through the falling snow, wavered up and down, and nearly expired; nevertheless, it was there, still shining. There was a light in the Hut in Bear Valley.

It was five o’clock, and therefore pitch-dark, when a shapeless something stopped in front of the Hut in Bear Valley. That “something” spread out its thick white wings and began to beat its body with them and peel off a coating of snow four inches thick. Beneath the snow a coat became visible, and below the coat two feet, and these feet stamped on the stone door-step, till great lumps of snow dropped from them. It was the messenger from Spindelmühl.

He entered the hut and saw a thin gentleman sitting at the table. He tried to utter a greeting, but his voice failed him completely. It only made a little wheezing noise like that of escaping steam.

The other man rose: “My good man, what the devil brings you here in a blizzard like this? Why, you might never have got through alive!”

The messenger nodded and gurgled.

“If it isn’t absolute madness!” growled the other, and told the servant to bring some tea. “Well, where were you making for, then, dad? Martin’s Hut?”

The messenger shook his head and opened his leather pouch; it was full of snow; he took out a telegram frozen so stiff that it crackled.

“Bha, bha, Bharek?” he croaked out hoarsely.

“What do you say?” asked the other.

“Is . . . anyone . . . here . . . named . . . Mar . . . ek, an . . . Eng . . . i . . . neer?” the messenger stammered out with a reproachful look.

“That’s me,” the thin gentlemen cried. “Have you something for me? Let me see it, quick!”

Marek tore open the telegram. It read: