After groping about for some time they found the toboggan, unstrapped the snowshoes, and used them as shovels to clear away a circular place. In doing so they came upon the black brands of last night's fire, with the camp kettle upon them where they had left it. Fred ploughed through the snow and collected wood for a fresh fire, while Peter and Maurice set up stakes and poles and built a roof of hemlock branches to afford shelter from the storm. It was only a rude shed with one side open to face the fire, but it kept off the snow and wind and proved fairly comfortable. Fred had coffee made by this time, and it did not take long to fry a pan of bacon. They seated themselves on a heap of boughs at the edge of the shelter and ate and drank. They all were stiff and sore, but the hot food and coffee made a decided improvement.
"What surprises me," remarked Maurice, "is that we didn't freeze last night, sleeping under the snow. But I never felt warmer in bed."
"It was the snow that did it. Snow makes a splendid nonconductor of heat," replied Macgregor. "Better than blankets. I remember hearing of a man who was caught by a blizzard crossing a big barren up north with a train of dogs. The dogs wouldn't face the storm; he lost his directions; and finally he turned the sledge over and got under it with the dogs around him, and let it snow. He stayed there a day and a half, asleep most of the time, and wouldn't have known when the storm was over, only that a pack of timber wolves smelt him and tried to dig him out. They ran when they found out what was there, but he bagged two of them with his rifle."
"I don't believe even timber wolves would have wakened me this morning. I never was so stiff and used up in my life," Maurice commented on this tale of adventure.
"Yes, we need the rest," said Mac. "We overdid it yesterday, and we couldn't have gone far to-day in any case."
"But meanwhile that man at the cabin may be dying," exclaimed Fred.
"If he's dead it can't be helped," responded the Scotchman. "We're doing all that's humanly possible. But if he's alive, don't forget that he can't get away while this storm lasts, any more than we can."
"Well, it looks as if the storm would last all day," said Fred, gazing upwards.
The blizzard did last all that day, reaching its height toward the middle of the afternoon, but it was not extremely cold, and the boys were fairly comfortable. They lounged on the blankets in the shelter of the camp, and recuperated from their fatigue, discussing their chances of still reaching the cabin in time to do any good. None of them could guess accurately how far they had come in that terrible night, but at the worst they could not think the cabin more than forty miles farther. This distance would have to be traveled on snowshoes, however, not skates, and none of the boys were very expert snowshoers. It would be certainly more than one day's tramp.
Toward night the wind lessened, though it was still snowing fast. The boys piled on logs enough to keep the fire smouldering all night in spite of the snowflakes, and went to sleep under cover of the hemlock roof. Maurice awoke toward the middle of the night, and noticed drowsily that it had stopped snowing, and that a star or two was visible overhead.