At last all was finished and they were ready to face whatever the weather was preparing to launch upon their heads. About three o’clock the sky was full of tiny flakes which came through the still, silent air with a steady, monotonous persistency that presaged a heavy downfall. By night, which closed in early, the air was white with whirling flakes. It was impossible to see more than a few feet.
“You see. She get worse before she get better,” declared Joe oracularly as, after an early supper of jerked meat and hot tea, they sought their blankets.
When morning came the worst of the storm was over. But what a scene! Every landmark was obscured. Nothing met their eyes but a broad sheet of unbroken snow. Every track was obliterated. Only some bumps in the snow, like the hummocks over graves, showed where the mameluke dogs slept, securely tucked in by a snowy blanket.
Joe shook his head despondently.
“Boosh! No good, dees!” he grumbled. “That rascal, he moost be most glad to see. ‘Ha! Ha!’ he teenk to himself, ‘now I get away.’”
“I guess he’s dead right in that, too,” muttered Tom despondently.
“Courage! Mon garçon, we not geev up yet. We come long way get dees fellow, we get him. Get breakfast, den we open trail. Joe Picquet know dees country lak he know zee bumps in hees mattress.”
Soon afterward they took to their snowshoes, pressing forward over an unbroken expanse of white. Both boys now wore old Joe’s bark “snow glasses.” As for the old trapper himself, he had merely blackened his eyes underneath with a burned stick to relieve the glare. It gave him an odd and startling appearance, but it averted the danger of temporary sightlessness.
“Dat beeg rascal, he have to keep to dees valley,” said Joe as they pushed along. “No can get out till reach White Otter Lake. Maybe dere we strike hees trail once more.”
Encouraged by this hope, they made good progress till noon, when old Joe declared that they were within striking distance of White Otter Lake.