The wind shrieked with a thousand voices. The snow came sweeping down on them as though lashed by invisible whips. The roar of the storm sounded in their ears and the fine snow almost blinded them.
"It's worse than I thought," muttered Frank.
The slope was steep and precipitous. They could not distinguish the details of the trail other than as a vaguely winding path that led steadily downward. Frank lost his footing on a slippery rock and went tumbling down the declivity for several yards before he came to a stop in a snowbank. He got to his feet slowly and limped on, suffering from a bruised ankle.
The trail wound about a steep cliff and he skirted the base of it, then disappeared between two high masses of rock. Joe could dimly see the figure of his brother, and he hastened on so as not to lose sight of him.
But when Joe came around the rocks he was confronted by an opaque cloud of snow, like a huge white screen that had dropped from the skies. He could not see Frank at all.
He followed the trail as well as he could, but in a few moments he came to a stop. He was out on the open mountainside and the winds at this point converged so that the snow seemed to be swirling about him from all sides. The faint trail had been wholly obliterated.
He shouted.
"Frank! Frank!"
But the wind flung the words back into his teeth. A feeling of panic seized him for a moment, but he quickly calmed himself, for he realized that when Frank looked behind and saw they were separated, he would retrace his steps.
He went on uncertainly a few paces, until it occurred to him that he might be wandering in the wrong direction and that if Frank did turn back he might not be able to find him. So he tried to return to the trail again. But the snow was falling so heavily by now that he seemed to be wandering in an enormous grey void, from which all direction had been erased.