“You and John go to sleep now, Mr. Hatch. There will be no further trouble, I guess,” Ree said to the old man kindly, after some further talk, and as the Quaker did lie down, John stretched himself on his own bed, having first buckled on a pistol and placed his rifle within reach.
The exciting incident gave Ree plenty to think about as he gazed keenly through a loop hole, vainly trying to catch sight of some spark of fire or other sign which would show him the whereabouts of the men who had so unexpectedly appeared in the vicinity. The snow-filled air and thick darkness prevented his seeing anything, however, and the shrieking wind was the only sound which came to him.
John fell asleep at last and Ree did not disturb him until at the first peep of daylight when he went into the shed to care for the two horses, first calling to his chum to get breakfast started.
The wind had gone down with the coming of dawn, but the snow was deep in all directions and the weather was more intensely cold than on the previous day. This, however, did not deter the young pioneers from starting out on a short tour of investigation as soon as the morning meal was over. And Theodore Hatch cautioned them as they set out to use gentle means rather than force, with any one they met.
Not a trace of the footprints of the mysterious visitor of the night before were to be seen. The wind and snow had covered the tracks completely. With the spirit of true woodsmen, notwithstanding, the lads made for that point at the edge of the timber from which they believed the call for help had come. Even in the woods they found nothing. The snow was over their knees on a level and in many places the drifts were almost impassable.
“It is no use floundering around this way. Let’s go home and get our snowshoes,” Ree suggested, and John needed no urging. They turned and passed out of the edge of the woods a little to the right of the point at which they had entered. A hundred feet from the timber Ree paused.
“I thought I struck my foot against something—something like the body of a bear, or a wolf, maybe,” he said.
“Froze to death,” John, who was a few yards in advance, answered carelessly, not looking back, thinking it must be some sick or wounded wolf that had perished in the storm.
“Murdered, is more like it!”
Ree’s voice was not raised above his ordinary tone, but the deep significance of his remark caused his companion to turn quickly around. The next instant he was ploughing through the drifts at a run to where Ree stood, bending over something in the snow.