“My pop’s got a new set of false teeth,” Sammy said soberly. “He’s just got ’em—all new and shiny.”
“What did he do with the old ones he had?” asked Tess, interested.
“Huh! I dunno. Throwed ’em away, I hope. Anyway,” said Sammy, who had had much experience in wearing made over clothing, “mom can’t cut them down and make me wear ’em!”
The jangling of sleighbells hurried the party through breakfast. The little folks were first out upon the porch to look at the two pungs, filled with straw, and each drawn by a pair of heavy horses. The latter did not promise from their appearance a swift trip to Red Deer Lodge; but they were undoubtedly able to draw a heavy load through the deepest drifts in the forest.
They set out very gayly from the little lakeside town. It was not a brilliantly sunshiny day, for a haze wrapped the mountain tops about and was creeping down toward the ice-covered lake.
“There’s a storm gathering,” declared one of the men engaged to drive the Milton party into the woods. “I reckon you folks will git about all the snow you want for Christmas.”
“At any rate, it won’t be a green Christmas up here,” Agnes said to Neale, who sat beside her in the second sled. “I don’t think it is nice at all not to have plenty of snow over Christmas and New Year’s.”
“I’m with you there,” agreed the boy. “But I’m glad I haven’t got to shovel paths through these drifts,” he added, with a quick grin.
They found the tote-road, as the path was called, quite filled with snow in some places. There were only the marks of the sleds that had gone up two days before with the servants and baggage and returned—these same two pungs in which the party now rode.
The drifts were packed so hard that the horses drew the sleds right over the drifts, without breaking through more than an inch or two with their big hoofs. In some places they could trot heavily, jerking the sleds along at rather a good pace; but for most of the way the road was uphill, and the horses plodded slowly.