"But he'll find it mighty cold sleeping out, this weather," remarked Bobbins.
"He sure will!" agreed Tom.
The party went ahead as rapidly as possible, but even the stronger of the boys found it hard to climb the steeper ascents through the deep snow.
"Crackey!" exclaimed Isadore. "I know I'm slipping back two steps to every one I get ahead."
"Nonsense, Izzy," returned Helen. "For if you did that, you had better turn around and travel the other way; then you'd back up the hill!"
They had to wait and rest every few yards. The rocks were so huge that they often had to go out of the way for some distance to get around them. Although it could not be more than five miles, as the crow flies, from the lodge to the lone pine, in two hours they still had the hardest part of the journey before them.
"I had no idea we should be so long at it," Tom confessed.
"It's lucky Heavy didn't come with us," chuckled Helen.
"Why?"
"She would have been starved to death before this, and the idea of going the rest of the distance before turning back for home and luncheon would have destroyed her reason, I am sure."