In five minutes the searchlight revealed a drift of snow in the air, and ten minutes later the ground was white. A cold wind blew out of the north, shifting at times to the west, and the boys shivered under the chill of it. Still no welcome light from the camp.
"Can you find your way back to the cabin?" asked George after they had walked at least an hour.
"We've got to find our way somewhere pretty soon!" the other replied. "If we don't, we'll freeze to death!"
The boys walked for what seemed to them two hours more, and then Thede, who was in advance, stumbled over a tree bole lying at the foot of a gentle slope. He rose rubbing his elbow and turned the flashlight toward the front.
"I know where we are now," he said. "We're about eight miles from the cabin. This place here is called Bear Ridge, and it's about the only collection of rocks and caverns that I know of in this district."
"Can't we find a cavern to crawl into?" asked George, his teeth chattering with the cold.
"If we find a cavern," advised Thede, "we're likely to find a couple of bears packed away in it!"
"I don't care if there are a hundred bears!" grumbled George.
"I'll freeze to death if I stay out in this snow another minute!"
After a long and difficult climb the boys came to a ledge of rock and crawled into a small opening revealed by the searchlight.
"The beds are all full tonight, I guess," George said shivering.
"I hear Bruin kicking about being disturbed."