Though the boys made no response, they realized the awful meaning of Stanley’s words, and it was with a dull, heavy ache in their hearts that they sadly left the cabin. As Harry turned back, to pull the door together after him, he got sight of the crow who was hopping up and down on old Jerry’s shoulder, croaking and chattering in a perfect abandonment of mirth, as if in malicious enjoyment of their trouble.
Even the short time they had spent talking with the old man had made a great change out of doors. It was now snowing furiously, and the flakes, instead of falling, were driven straight before the wind which had increased to a gale, here sweeping the ground bare, there piling high white drifts which, to the boys’ excited imaginations, looked in the uncertain light like little mounds heaped over a human body. Twice they started out into the road; twice they were beaten back, and stood breathless in the shelter of the cabin. Then Louis said, as he shut his teeth tightly together, to steady his voice,—
“This won’t do, come on.”
On and on they struggled, peering this way and that, now and again stopping to call the child’s name, then pressing onward once more. At length Stanley halted.
“You’ll have to leave me, boys,” he panted. “I can’t go on any farther.”
“You must,” said Harry decidedly. “It’s sure death to stop here. Wing, you take hold one side of him, and I will the other. Steady, old fellow; keep up your courage and try again. We’ll get to a house soon.”
Yielding to their encouragement, Stanley made another effort, and the three boys went on, arm in arm, floundering through the drifts which were every moment growing deeper. The road had come out into the open fields again, and it was becoming difficult to keep in the track, while, to add to the danger of getting lost, the early winter twilight was settling down around them and they could see but a few paces ahead. Stanley’s steps were growing more and more uncertain, and the other boys staggered under the weight of supporting him. Their very eyelids were pressed together with the sweep of the snow, and it was well-nigh impossible for them to glance up, as they plodded onward, with only chance—or a higher, unseen power, to guide them.
All at once, Harry stopped abruptly.
“Listen!” he exclaimed.
They listened and heard, close at hand, the welcome sound of a dog’s bark.