[CHAPTER XX—BROKEN WIRES]
True to Bob’s prediction, the snowstorm proved to be a fierce one even for this season of unusual snows, and when the boys awoke the next morning they found that the ground had taken on an extra covering and the branches of the trees were weighted down with the heavy fall.
“Say, fellows, look what’s here!” cried Joe as he roused his mates, sleepy-eyed from their comfortable beds. “Old Jack Frost sure was busy last night.”
“Guess he thinks it’s Thanksgiving,” Bob agreed as he hurried into his clothes, keeping one eye on the frosty landscape and fairly aching to make part of it. “Hurry up, fellows, let’s go out and have a snow fight.”
“You’re on,” agreed Joe, and then began the race to see who would get from their cottage to the hotel and to the breakfast table first.
They arrived there—at the breakfast table, that is—at one and the same time and ate as ravenously as though they had not broken their fast in a week. Mr. and Mrs. Layton watched them and smiled, wishing that they might once more eat with such lusty appetites.
Before the boys had finished breakfast, it had begun to snow again, making the landscape appear more than ever blizzardy and bleak. Eagerly the boys buttoned up heavy sweaters, prepared to fight the storm to a finish.
It seemed that they were not the only ones whom the storm had lured forth. There were a number of people gathered in front of the hotel and, since they seemed rather excited about something, three of the boys joined them to find out what the fuss was all about, Jimmy remaining behind for the time being to take a nail from his shoe.
“The telegraph wires are all down,” said a man in response to Bob’s question. “There’s a man been raving around here like a crazy man, declaring he has to send a telegram. Nobody can seem to make him understand that since the wires are all down such a thing is impossible.”
“He might telephone,” Joe suggested, but the man who had been their informant took him up quickly.