One day the horse suddenly dropped one leg in the soft snow, on the right side of the track; this unbalanced him and--bang! he fell on his side, taking the sleigh with him. We were pitched out, and as we got up on our legs we found ourselves in snow up to our necks. Only after frantic efforts did the horse succeed in regaining his footing. As I looked around and saw our situation, and that our three heads were just above the snow, with the horse's head looking at us, his eyes seeming to say, "Are you not going to help me out of this?" I gave a great shout of laughter, for the sight was so funny that I forgot being pitched out--and I said to the driver, "Don't we look funny, the horse included, with only our heads and shoulders above the snow!" What a job we had to extricate ourselves, put the poor horse on the track again, and afterwards right the sleigh. Then we found that the harness was broken in several places, and we had to mend it the best way we could with numb fingers. I had stopped laughing, for there was no fun in that. "At this rate of travelling," I said to the driver, "it will take a whole day to go three or four miles. I do not know whether our poor horse will be able to stand it. Look at him! He looks as if he were a smoke-stack, so much steam is rising from his body. He may become so exhausted that he will not be able to go further, and we shall have to abandon the sleigh." "It is so," coolly replied Lars the driver, and he remained silent afterwards. I felt sorry for the poor horse, and reproached myself for not having tarried at the last post station. Then I said to Lars, "If the horse gives out, we will try to build a snow house for us three. You have some hay, and he will not starve. As for ourselves, we will try to reach some farm and get some food and some oats for our poor dear horse. I am very sorry we have no skees with us." There was so much snow over the land that I thought I had come to "Snow Land." It was over twelve feet in depth; it had been snowing for six consecutive days and nights, and it was snowing yet. I was now between the sixty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of north latitude, and I had to travel on the road nearly two hundred miles more before I came to the southern part of "The Land of the Long Night." The little town of Umea for which I was bound was still far away. I said to myself, "I have to cross this 'Snow Land' before I reach 'The Land of the Long Night.' What hard work it will be!" A little further on we came to the post station--and how glad I was to spend the night there--to get into a feather bed. The following day the snow-ploughs and the rollers were busy, and the centre of the highway was made passable for some miles further north. So bidding good-bye to the station master and to my driver of the day before, I started with a fine young horse and a strong young fellow for a driver.