"Do you think we ought to start for home in such a snow-storm as this?" questioned Dave. "If it comes down any heavier we might lose our way."
"Humph! this ain't nuthin' to the snow-storm I got caught in the winter I found them twins," said Sam Barringford. "I don't want none like thet again, not me! We can get git home in this, right enough."
The storm the old frontiersman referred to had occurred two years before. It had been little short of a blizzard, and while out in the worst of it Barringford had come to a spot where a man and a horse lay dead and partly devoured by the wolves. A bundle rested in a tree near by, and much to the old frontiersman's amazement it contained two baby boys, in all probability twins, by their close resemblance to each other. With the bundle clasped to his breast the old hunter had tried to fight his way through the blizzard to the Morris homestead, three miles away. He had almost reached it when he found himself exhausted, and had been rescued by James Morris and his brother Joseph. At the cabin, the twins had been cared for by Mrs. Morris. Nothing could be learned concerning their identity, or the identity of the man found dead beside them, and they had at last been adopted by Barringford, who was an old bachelor, and who called them Tom and Artie, after two of his uncles. We shall learn more of these twins as our story proceeds.
About eleven o'clock there was a slight lull and Barringford announced that they had better start without further delay. The others were willing, and in a short space of time the camping spot was left behind, and they were crossing the first of the hills which separated them from the Morris homestead.
"This is the sort of storm to keep up for several days," observed Rodney, and he was right, the fall of snow lasted for forty-eight hours longer and made all the roads in that vicinity impassable for the time being.
It was nightfall when they reached the Morris homestead, standing as my old readers know, in the midst of a rather large clearing. It was a rude but comfortable cabin, long, low, and narrow, with the back roof sloping down to a kitchen porch. There were four fair-sized rooms, all on the ground floor, and above them a loft used occasionally for a sleeping room, and stored with seeds and with supplies for the winter. Not far from the house was a rude shelter of logs and sods for the cattle, back of which, in the summer time, flowed a gurgling brook of the clearest spring water.
As they approached the cabin Dave and Rodney set up a loud shout. This brought Joseph Morris from the cattle shed, and likewise brought Mrs. Morris, little Nell, and the twins to the doorway of the homestead.
"Hullo! back again, eh?" sang out Joseph Morris. "Good enough. And Sam and White Buffalo, too. Glad to see you once more."
"I didn't know you expected to be back from town so soon, father," answered Rodney.
"I had an accident that made me cut my trip short," answered Joseph Morris. He limped forward. "Bess got frightened at a wildcat and threw me over her head. In coming down my foot struck a sharp rock, and I gave my ankle a bad twist."