Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was cold, bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off them. But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he could do to fight back a wave of panic which rushed on him with a belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that would bring him crashing to earth. When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.” “Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m frozen stiff.” They both peered anxiously out round as their Verey light shot out and floated down; but they could see no sign of a flare or an answering light. They fired another signal, and still had no reply; and then, “I’m going down,” yelled the pilot, shutting off his engine and letting the machine glide down in a slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 feet, nor at 300, nor at 200, so opened the throttle and picked up speed again. “Shove her down,” yelled the observer. “More snow coming.”