"Well, with a blanket of snow two feet deep on the ground," observed Toby, "I'd like to know how the woods could ever get afire this day. And that blaze was such a good friend to us I didn't have the heart to throw snow on the same. It'd seemed too much like calling a dog to you, patting him on the head after he came, wagging his tail in a friendly way, and then tying a tinpan to him, after which you gave him a nasty kick to start him yelping and running. But here's hoping we meet up with my uncle before the third night comes."
"I should say, yes," added Lil Artha; "if this sort of thing keeps on we'll be likely to spend all our midwinter vacation roaming around up here, and getting nowhere."
"And," Toby further complained, with a sad shake of the head, "we'd laid out to have such a bully good time at his cabin, learning all about trapping, and p'raps going out with him nights to use his flashlight contrivance, and get pictures of the little fur-bearing animals in their native haunts."
"Oh! it's going to be all right," announced Elmer, who as usual saw the bright side of the situation. "Something's sure to turn up to-day; and before another night we'll be toasting our feet in front of a fire indoors, with a bunk to crawl into when we're sleepy, and something else besides dry venison at meal times."
"Here, don't say a word against that same venison!" exclaimed Lil Artha; "it's been a life-saver, let me tell you. And to think I was ready to own up I'd missed my deer, only for you, Elmer. That taught me a lesson I'll never forget, believe me. After this I'll always look for signs when I've shot at game, and never just guess at things."
"Nothing like making sure, every time," remarked George.
"Guess you go by that motto, old fellow," Toby told him. "They don't fool you very often, do they; and never twice on the same racket?"
Along about the middle of the morning, after they had been making rather slow progress, and laboring heavily, Elmer was seen to betray sudden interest, and to quicken his footsteps. Then he turned, and beckoned wildly to them. As the other toilers reached his side the scout master pointed ahead of him, and remarked:
"There's something moving in the snow yonder, boys; look and see if you can make out what it is!"
At that they all stared very hard, and Lil Artha was the first to exclaim: