From his vantage point in the Pine tree, he was able to see the creek. The snow cut his visibility down to almost zero, but he could still barely make out his tracks where he had crossed just as few minutes ago.

He was surprised to unexpectedly see tracks appearing in the snow and walking slowly up to the creek, then hesitate. Mark held his breath. Why did he not go ahead and cross? Then just as suddenly, the tracks started across the stream, some of them stepping in his own tracks. He could not see anything but the tracks. What was this creature? If he was a human dressed in a white suit, he was very well disguised. He could not even make out a form of any kind and he should be able to see something at this distance. There was no indication of height or weight except that the tracks he made were big, wide and very deep. He clinched his shotgun in his right hand and aimed it in the direction of the thing. He wished he had the time to assemble and string his bow, but there was not enough time for that now. It probably would not be very effective against something that he could not see anyhow. The shotgun would be good up to about thirty-yards and after that the pellets scattered. Guess that's why they called it a "scatter gun.", he thought.

Then it happened. He first heard the familiar crack of the ice and then saw a large hole appear in the layer over the creek, with water splashing up through the opening and landing on the snow above. The scream that emanated from the direction of the creek was not only the loudest that he had ever heard, but it was one that he readily recognized. In the few minutes that he watched, the water froze and was soon covered by fresh snow. He guessed that the creature had fell through the ice and was carried under by the swift current. There seemed to be a lot of thrashing around, or so he thought. Maybe the creature could not swim in freezing water and could not get out. Any thing in that cold water would surely be frozen in minutes, or so he hoped. At this location, that he had chosen from memories when he had fished here in the summertime, the creek was at its deepest point. Any creature would have a hard time of getting out of that even in the summertime, especially if they could not swim. The freezing temperatures would kill almost any person or thing in a few minutes. He thought that his troubles were now over. He was tempted to go to the bank of the creek that had saved his life and thank it, or at least perform some ancient ceremony in it's honor. Mark had ever intuition to make sure that the creature was not alive, but changed his mind. For one thing, he reasoned that he could not see whatever it was anyway, so why try? The other reason was that darkness was coming on and he had to get over the cliff and find shelter of some kind for the night. Alone in the cold without

heat, he would surely freeze to death as the creature had done.

His first concern was his ankle. He knew that it was not broken, but it was seriously sprained and made it difficult to get around, especially in the snow. Climbing down from the huge Pine tree required little effort on his part but it was harder with the sprained ankle than it would have normally been. Removing his twelve-inch hunting knife that his mother had bought him for Christmas, he began whittling a small limb from the Pine tree until he had a reasonable splint for his leg. After making several of these and taking some rawhide strings from his backpack, he soon had a comfortable support for his swollen ankle. His hatchet made short work of a small maple tree from which he made a walking stick to support himself. With his new support equipment, he was able to halfway walk and halfway slide down the cliff side. The huge grapevines gave him excellent support when he needed it.

When he was at the bottom of the cliff, he looked back up and was surprised that he could not clearly see the top for the snow that was falling and the covering of the trees. Something inside of him made him quite uneasy about the creature. He could almost feel the thing right behind him and that made shivers of fear run up his spine. Within a few minutes the capacity of the blizzard had increased and his tracks in the snow were gone, covered up until the spring thaw erased all evidence of any incident that had happened here in the year of 1960.

The winter of 1960 was one of the worst in Kentucky history. Heavy snows invaded early in the year and even in the waning days of May, there was still snow on the ground. Every creature that had not left out for the South, struggled to survive. This unfortunately, included both human and animals. Mark Lewis would remember that winter for many reasons.

He was cold, wet, sick and quite undecided as to what to do next. He had planned on going on home, but at this point, he was more than fifteen miles to the southeast of his home near Hustonville. He was in a hilly section of the state where the landscape was dotted with small mountains beginning at the edge of the bluegrass country. These small hills were called, "the knobs" by some Kentucky residents and only the hardier of souls had chosen to settle here in the early days. It wasn't the distance that worried him, it was the fact that until he could get out of these hills, he would have to travel around several of these hills and through the valleys in between to get home. This meant that there would be a lot of more snow in the valleys, drifted and piled up at least waist high and almost impassable. With him being somewhat injured, the traveling would be hard. These knobs ended about three miles to the north and if he could get there, the traveling might be easier.