After breakfast Uncle Ike came into the kitchen and received a warm welcome from Swiss. Uncle Ike told Mandy and Mrs. Crowley the well-known story of the rescues of lost travellers made by the St. Bernard dogs on the snow-clad mountains of Switzerland. When Mrs. Crowley learned that Swiss had come from a country a great many miles farther away from America than Ireland was, he rose greatly in her estimation and she made no objection to his occupying a warm corner of the kitchen.
About noon, when the storm was at its very worst, Mandy, who was looking out of the kitchen window, espied something black in the road about halfway between Deacon Mason's and the Pettengill house. She called Mrs. Crowley to the window and asked her what she thought it was.
"That's aisy," said Mrs. Crowley, "It's a man coming down the road."
"What can bring a man out in such a storm as this?" asked Mandy.
"Perhaps he is going for the docther," remarked Mrs. Crowley.
"Then he would be going the other way," asserted Mandy.
"He's a plucky little divil anyway," said Mrs. Crowley.
"That's so," said Mandy. "He is all right as long as he keeps on his feet, but if he should fall down—"
At that moment the man did fall down or disappear from sight. Mandy pressed her face against the window pane and looked with strained eyes. He was up again, she could see the dark clothing above the top of the snow.
What was that! A cry? The sound was repeated.