The mention of the echo reminded Nelson that there was a better way back than facing the storm across the open ice of the cove. Here was the wooded point not far to the right as he faced the town again.
“We’ll find shelter under those trees, if nothing else,” muttered the school teacher, and with the little girl clinging around his neck, a dead weight, he stumbled on until he found the broken line of the shore.
The snow was banking up upon it in a great windrow; but Nelson plunged through this barrier and reached the sheltered grove. A low, sweeping spruce offered them complete roofing from the storm. Nelson put the little girl down, broke off some dead branches, and quickly started a fire.
When it was snapping brightly, he removed Lottie’s shoes and stockings and restored the circulation to her feet. Then she woke up and declared herself to be “all warm and comfy—and couldn’t we go home to supper, for I am drefful hungry?”
Nelson knew well enough that the storm would not cease for many hours; they could not possibly remain here, for no searching party would know where to look for them. They must get home as soon as possible, and before it grew too dark to see.
He knew that by going up the point, through the wood, he would strike an old wood road through Mr. Cross Moore’s property to the place where the railroad bridge was already half builded over the brook. A sawmill had been put into this timber a few years before, and most of the well-grown trees had been cut and sawed into planks.
Therefore, when he staggered out of the spruce growth with little Lottie in his arms, he found himself in conflict with the gale, which had a good sweep through the open woodland.
It was still light enough for Nelson to see the outline of objects. This was a path familiar to him, for he and Janice and little Lottie had often walked here the spring before.
The snow underfoot made the traveling very hard; nor was Nelson as strong as he had been before his illness at Thanksgiving. He had to stop frequently, turn his back to the gale, and get his breath, hovering Lottie before him, encircled in his arms. Then he would plunge on again, plowing through the beating storm—fairly fighting for the gain of each ten yards as though battling an actual enemy.
In one of these resting spells he thought he heard a cry. It was faint and seemed to come a long way down wind. He rose and answered it; but he doubted if his voice could have carried very far against the gale.