“Smoke!” exclaimed Bobolink, staring up the side of the white hill. “How can that be when there isn’t the first sign of a fire?”
“You don’t catch on to the idea, Bobolink,” explained Paul. “He means that those in the cave must have some sort of fire going, and the smoke finds its way out through some small crevices that lie under a thin blanket of snow. Am I right there, Tolly Tip?”
“Ye sure hit the nail on the head, Paul,” he was told by the guide.
“Well, that’s good news,” admitted Bobolink, with a look of relief on his face. “If they’ve got enough wood to keep even a small fire going, they won’t be found frozen to death anyhow.”
“And,” continued Jud, who had given the shovel over to Jack, “it takes some days to really starve a fellow, I understand. You see I’ve been reading lately about the adventures of the Dr. Kane exploring company up in the frozen Arctic regions. When it got to the worst they staved off starvation by making soup of their boots.” 189
“But you mustn’t forget,” interposed Bobolink, “that their boots were made of skins, and not of the tough leather we use these days. I’d like to see Hank Lawson gnawing on one of his old hide shoes, that’s what! It couldn’t be done, any way you fix it.”
The hole grew by degrees, but very slowly. It seemed as though tons and tons of snow must have been swept over the crest of the hill, to settle down in every cavity it could find.
“We’re getting there, all right!” declared Bobolink, after he had taken his turn, and in turn handed over the shovel to Paul.
“Oh! the Fourth of July is coming too, never fear!” jeered Jud, who was in a grumbling mood.
“Why, Tolly Tip here says we’ve made good progress already,” Tom Betts declared, merely to combat the spirit manifested by Jud, “and that we’ll soon be half-way through the pile. If it were three times as big we’d get there in the end, because this is a never-say-die bunch of scouts, you bet!”