howl of the wind. When for an instant it ceased, you could hear the frozen snow crunching shrilly under your feet like powdered glass.
Above Spindelmühl a telegraph messenger was making his way through the storm. It was confoundedly heavy going through the heaped-up snow. The messenger had his cap fastened tight over his ears with a red handkerchief, and had woollen gloves on, and a gaudy scarf round his neck, and still he was cold. "Ah, well," he was thinking, "in another hour and a half at any rate I'll have crawled up to Bear Valley, and I'll borrow a sledge for the run down. But what the devil possesses people to send telegrams in filthy weather like this!"
At the Maiden's Bridge a gust caught him and spun him round nearly in a circle. With frozen hands he clung to the post of the signboard set there for tourists. "Holy Virgin!" he muttered, "this surely can't last!" And then across a clearing a huge cloud-like mass of snow came whirling towards him—coming nearer and nearer—now down upon him . . . he must hold his breath at all costs. . . . A thousand needle-points drove into his face and made their way inside his coat; through a little rent in his clothing the icy particles reached his skin; the man was drenched beneath his frozen garments. The cloud blew past, and the messenger felt very much disposed to turn back to the post-office.
