AMONG THE SNOWDRIFTS
“This is hard work after all, let me own up!” announced Jud Elderkin, after they had been pushing on for nearly half an hour.
“To tell you the truth,” admitted Tom Betts, “we’ve turned this way and that so often now I don’t know whether we’re heading straight.”
“Trust Tolly Tip for that,” urged Paul. “And besides, if you’d taken your bearings as you should have done when starting, you could tell from the position of the sun that right now we’re going straight toward that far-off hill.”
“Good for ye, Paul!” commented the guide, who was deeply interested in finding out just how much woods lore these scouts had picked up during their many camp experiences.
“Well, here’s where we’re up against it good and hard,” observed Bobolink.
The clear space they had been following came to an abrupt end, and before them lay a great drift of snow, at least five or six feet deep. 181
“Do we try to flounder through this, or turn around and try another way?” asked Jud, looking as though, if the decision rested with him, he would only too gladly attack the heap of snow.
Before deciding, Tolly Tip climbed into the fork of a tree. From this point of vantage he was able to see beyond the drift. He dropped down presently with a grin on his face.
“It’s clear ag’in beyant the hape av snow; so we’d better try to butt through the same,” he told them. “Let me go first, and start a path. Whin I play out one av the rist av ye may take the lead. Come along, boys.”
The relief party plunged into the great drift with merry shouts, being filled with the enthusiasm of abounding youth. The big woodsman kept on until even he began to tire of the work; or else guessed that Jud was eager to take his place.
In time they had passed beyond the obstacle, and again found themselves traversing a windswept avenue that led in the general direction they wished to go.
A short time afterwards Jud uttered a shout.
“Hold on a minute, fellows!” he called out.
“What ails you now, Jud—got a cramp in your leg, or do you think it’s time we stopped for a bite of lunch?” demanded Bobolink.
“Here’s the plain track of a deer,” answered 182 Jud, pointing down as he spoke. “And it was made only a short time ago you can see, because while the wind blows the snow some every little while, it hasn’t filled the track.”
“That’s good scout logic, Jud,” affirmed Paul; and even the old woodsman nodded his head as though he liked to hear the boy think things out so cleverly.
“Here it turns into this blind path,” continued Jud, “which I’d like to wager ends before long in a big drift. Like as not if we chose to follow, we’d find Mr. Stag wallowing in the deepest kind of snow, and making an easy mark.”
“Well, we can’t turn aside just now, to hunt a poor deer that is having a hard enough time of it keeping life in his body,” said Tom Betts, aggressively.
“No, we’ll let the poor beast have his chance to get away,” said the scout-master. “We’ve started out on a definite errand, and mustn’t allow ourselves to be drawn aside. So put your best foot forward again, Jud.”
Jud looked a little loth to give up the chance to get the deer, a thing he had really set his mind on. However, there would still be plenty of time to accomplish this, and equal Bobolink’s feat, whereby the other had been able to procure fresh venison for the camp. 183
“How far along do you think we are, Tolly Tip?” asked Tom Betts, after more time had passed, and they began to feel the result of their struggle.
“More’n half way there, I’d be sayin’,” the other replied. “Though it do same as if the drifts might be gittin’ heavier the closer we draw to the hill. Av ye fale tired mebbe we’d better rist up a bit.”
“What, me tired!” exclaimed Tom, disdainfully, at the same time putting new life in his movements. “Why, I’ve hardly begun to get started so far. Huh! I’m good for all day at this sort of work, I’m so fond of ploughing through the snow.”
The forest seemed very solemn and silent. Doubtless nearly all of the little woods folk found themselves buried under the heavy fall of snow, and it would take time for them to tunnel out.
“Listen to the crows cawing as they fly overhead,” said Jud, presently.
“They’re gathering in a big flock over there somewhere,” remarked Paul.
“They’re having what they call a crow caucus,” explained Jack. “They do say that the birds carry on in the queerest way, just as if they were holding court to try one of their number that had done something criminal.” 184
“More likely they’re getting together to figure it out where they can find the next meal,” suggested Bobolink, sensibly. “This snow must have covered up pretty nearly everything. But at the worst they can emigrate to the South—can get to Virginia, where the climate isn’t so severe.”
As they pushed their way onward the boys indulged in other discussions along such lines as this. They were wideawake, and observed every little thing that occurred around them, and as these often pertained to the science of woodcraft which they delighted to study, they found many opportunities to give forth their opinions.
“We ought to be getting pretty near that old hill, seems to me,” observed Tom, when another hour had dragged by. Then he quickly added: “Not that I care much, you know, only the sooner we see if Hank and his cronies are in want the better it’ll be.”
“There it is right now, dead ahead of us!” exclaimed Jud, who had a pair of wonderfully keen eyes.
Through an opening among the trees they could all see the hill beyond, although it was so covered with snow that its outlines seemed shadowy, and it was little wonder none of them had noticed it before.
“Not more’n a quarter of a mile off, I should 185 say,” declared Tom Betts, unable to hide fully the sense of pleasure the discovery gave him.
“But all the same we’ll have a pretty tough time making it,” remarked Jud. “It strikes me the snow is deeper right here than in any place yet, and the paths fewer in number.”
“How is that, Tolly Tip?” asked Bobolink.
“Ye say, the hill shunted off some av the wind,” explained the other without any hesitation; “and so the snow could drop to the ground without bein’ blown about so wild like. ’Tis a fine blanket lies ahead av us, and we’ll have to do some harrd wadin’ to make our way through the same.”
“Hit her up!” cried Tom, valiantly. “Who cares for such a little thing as snow piles?”
They floundered along as best they could. It turned out to be anything but child’s play, and tested their muscular abilities from time to time.
In vain they looked about them as they drew near the hill; there was not a single trace of any one moving around. Some of the scouts began to feel very queerly as they stared furtively at the snow covered elevation. It reminded them of a white tomb, for somewhere underneath it they feared the four boys from Stanhope might be buried, too weak to dig their way out.
Tolly Tip led them on with unerring fidelity.
“How does it come, Tolly Tip,” asked the curious 186 Jud as they toiled onward, “that you remember this hole in the rocks so well?”
“That’s an aisy question to answer,” replied the other, with one of his smiles. “Sure ’twas some years ago that I do be having a nate little ruction with the only bear I iver kilt in this section. He was a rouser in the bargain, I’d be after tillin’ ye. I had crawled into the rift in the rocks to say where it lid whin I found mesilf up aginst it.”
“Oh! in that case I can see that you would be apt to remember the hole in the rocks always,” commented Jud. “A fellow is apt to see that kind of thing many a time in his dreams. So those fellows happened on the old bear den, did they?”
“We’re clost up to the same now, I’m plazed to till ye,” announced the guide. “If ye cast an eye beyont ye’ll mebbe notice that spur av rock that stands out like a ploughshare. Jist behind the same we’ll strike the crack in the rocks, and like as not find it filled to the brim wid the snow.”
When the five scouts and their guide stood alongside the spur of rock, looking down into the cavity now hidden by ten feet of snow, they were somehow forced to turn uneasy faces toward one another. It was deathly still there, and not a sign could they see to indicate that under the shroud of snow the four Stanhope boys might be imprisoned, almost dead with cold and hunger.