Of course the snow would quickly cover him, and doubtless he would be buried deep ere the fury of the storm was past.

But he had a vague plan for putting his snowshoes over his head like an inverted V, and hoped in that way to be kept from smothering.

At the same time he had little thought that he should ever see the light of another day.
"Only a bit further and then I can rest," he muttered, as he pushed into the blackness of a rift between two tall cliffs, and experienced a partial relief from the furious wind.

It seemed as though he ought to penetrate this as far as possible, and so he struggled weakly forward.
Then he stumbled over something that lay across his path and fell heavily.

As he lay wondering whether an attempt to regain his feet would be worth while, he seemed to hear the distant but strenuous ringing of an electric bell, and almost smiled at the absurdity of such a fancy in such a place.