"We'd better go back to that tree. We were safe there," muttered
Heavy, her teeth chattering.
But they had drifted with the storm, and when they turned to face it they knew at once that never could they make way against the wind and snow.
"Oh, oh, oh!" wailed Helen. "We're lost! we're lost!"
"Hold up! Be brave!" urged her chum. "We must not give up now. Some other tree will give us shelter. Cling together, girls. We must get somewhere."
But where? It was a question none of them could answer. They remained cowering in the driving snow, utterly confused as to direction, and fast becoming buried where they stood.
CHAPTER XXI
ADRIFT IN THE STORM
"We shall freeze to death if we stay here!"
Madge Steele spoke thus, and the situation precluded any doubt as to the truth of the statement. The six girls from Snow Camp were indeed in peril of death—and all were convinced of the fact.
Lluella Fairfax was in tears, and her chum, Belle Tingley, was on the verge of weeping, too. Helen Cameron had hard work to keep back her own sobs; even Jennie Stone, the stout girl, was past turning the matter into a joke. And Madge Steele was unable to suggest a single cheerful portent.