“Porton must have seen us when we came up to the rooms,” said Dave to his chums. “He probably heard me speak about leaving my cap and overcoat downstairs, and he just took a fiendish delight in walking off with them and leaving his old duds behind. Oh, he certainly is a peach!”
Had there been the slightest let-up in the blizzard, Dave and his chums would have gone out on a hunt around the town for Porton and his unknown companion. But with the wind blowing almost a hurricane, and the snow coming down as thickly as ever, Dr. Renwick told them that they had better remain indoors.
“It isn’t likely that they stayed anywhere 147 around here, fearing detection,” said the physician. “They probably put a good distance between themselves and this hotel. And to go out in such a storm as this might make some of you sick.”
“Oh, well, what of that? We have a doctor handy,” answered Dave, whimsically. “Just the same, I guess we had better remain where we are,” he added, with a deep sigh.
It was not until the following morning that the wind died down and the snow ceased to fall. In the meantime, the young folks did what they could to entertain themselves, the girls playing on the piano in the hotel parlor, and the boys later on taking them to the bowling alleys next door and initiating them into the mysteries of the game. Dave was a good bowler and so was Roger, each being able occasionally to make a score of two hundred. But Ben and Phil could not do much better than one hundred, while none of the girls got over eighty.
“Now that the snow has stopped falling, I suppose we had better try to get back to Crumville,” said Laura to her brother.
“Yes, we ought to get back,” put in Jessie. “I suppose our folks are dreadfully worried about us.”
“It was too bad that you couldn’t send some sort of word,” came from Belle. “If you could 148 only do that we could stay here until the roads were well broken.”
“In the West we don’t pretend to go out in such a storm,” remarked Cora Dartmore. “But, of course, our distances are greater, and we have so few landmarks that it is an easy thing to get lost.”
“I don’t think we are going to get away from here in any great hurry,” replied Dave. “It is true the snow has stopped coming down and the sun is breaking through the clouds; but I am quite sure the drifts on the road between here and Crumville are much higher than we can manage, even with the powerful horses we have. We’ll have to wait until the roads are more or less broken.”