The millet-seed snow gradually merged into flakes; bigger and bigger did these grow, till at last we were in the midst of a blinding summer’s snowstorm.
It was impossible to see even a few yards ahead, so we formed into line, one going in front of the other, Jeeka and Castizo being ahead. Castizo had a compass. Jeeka seemed to carry a compass in the brain. He appeared to know every rock, every bush, and every tussock of grass, disguised though they now were in a mantle of snow.
By and by Castizo came to the rear, where, with heads down and with our arms often across our faces, leaving it entirely to the horses to follow the trail, Peter, Jill, and I were struggling on.
“How do you like it?” he said cheerfully to Jill, who was the centre figure.
“I’ve been more agreeably situated many a time,” replied Jill.
“And I’ve been more agreeably seat-uated too,” cried Peter, with a glance behind him, which almost cost him the seat he was punning about. For when on horseback, poor Peter was always like the rocking-stone on the Cornish hills—touch and go. Only the rocking-stone never does go. Peter did frequently, and although the sly dog at first pretended that he could ride, he had the reckless courage to confess now that he had been mistaken. He would not venture to look up in the air, he said, for anything; and whenever he was rash enough to glance behind him, as he did now, he had to clutch at the saddle with both hands.
“Peter!” I shouted, “you’ll fall, little boy.”
“He deserves to,” said Jill, “after making so despicable a pun.”
“Well,” said Castizo, laughing, “seat or no seat, Peter, you will have to remain in that saddle for many hours to come. You’ll have to dine there, too.”