Fred awoke to find himself almost steaming hot, and in utter darkness and silence. All his muscles ached, and he could not imagine where he was. A weight held him down when he tried to move, but he turned over at last and sat up with an effort. A glare of white light made him blink. He had been buried under more than two feet of snow.
It was broad daylight. All the world was white, and a raging snowstorm was driving through the forest. The tree-tops creaked and roared, and the powdery snow whirled like smoke. Fred felt utterly bewildered. There was no sign of the camp-fire, nor of the toboggan, nor of any of his companions, nothing but a few mounds on the drifted white surface.
Finally he crawled out of his sleeping-outfit and dug into one of these mounds. Two feet down he came upon the surface of a sleeping-bag, and punched it vigorously. It stirred; the flap opened, and Macgregor thrust his face out, blinking, red and dazed.
"Time to get up!" Fred shouted.
Mac crawled out and shook off the snow, looking disconcerted.
"Snowed in, with a vengeance!" he remarked. "Where's the camp—and where's Maurice?"
After prodding about they located the third member of their party at last, and dug him out. As for the camp, there was none, and they could only guess at where the toboggan with their stores might be buried.
"This ends our skating," said Maurice. "It'll have to be snowshoes after this. Good thing we got so far last night."
"No thanks to me!" Fred remarked. "I was the expert skater; I believe I said I'd set the pace, and I was the first to cave in. I hope I do better with the snowshoes."
"Neither snowshoes nor skates to-day," said Peter. "We can't travel till this storm blows over. Nothing for it but to build a camp and sit tight."