The gale seemed to be increasing rather than abating, and it kept on all that night, and for two nights and two days more.
Then it fell calm.
"I trust in Heaven," said M'Vayne, "that Sandie, our shepherd, has reached the shelter of some hut, but I fear the worst. The sheep may be buried, but they will survive; but without food poor Sandie cannot have withstood the brunt of that awful blizzard.
"Boys," he continued, "I shall start at once on a search, and the keeper will come with me."
"And we too."
"Wowff! wowff!" barked Vike, as much as to say, "You'd be poorly off without my assistance."
It was a lovely forenoon now, with a clear sky, but not as much wind as would suffice to lift one feathery flake.
They meant to find the shepherd, but it was his hard-frozen corpse they expected to dig out of a snow-drift.
CHAPTER VI.--"THE BREATH OF GOD WAS OVER ALL THE LAND."
There were two huts on the moorland, one in the open, another close against a ridge of rocks, and in one or other poor Sandie would surely have found shelter.