Nobody spoke after M’Graw expressed himself until they came to the path on which they had previously seen the marks of the small sled and the footprints of Sammy and the two youngest Corner House girls. These traces were now entirely obliterated. It was snowing heavily and the wind was rising.
“Hi gorry!” ejaculated the old woodsman, “how about those other children? Are they at home where they ought to be?”
“Whom do you mean?” asked the lawyer, rather startled.
But Neale understood. He looked sharply about. Not an impression in the snow but that of their own feet was visible.
“I’ll go and see if the sled is returned to the place they got it from,” he said, and dashed away to the shed.
Before Mr. Howbridge and M’Graw had reached the Lodge Neale O’Neil came tearing after them.
“Oh, wait! Wait!” he shouted. “They haven’t come back with the sled. What do you suppose can have happened to Sammy and Tess and Dot?”
[CHAPTER XXI—ROWDY]
About the time Neale O’Neil was asking his very pertinent question about the whereabouts of Sammy and Tess and Dot, that trio had stopped, breathless and not a little frightened, in a big drift at what seemed the bottom of a deep hole.
The snow swirled about them so, and they seemed to have come so far down from the place where they had pushed off on the sled, that they believed it was a deep hole; and there seemed no possibility of getting out of it.