"Pshaw! co-om you down and get. What for you sit all alone up there? Eet is not good to sit zere, and you will catch cold."
"Oh, don't trouble about me, thanks. I'm all right; I don't catch cold easily—"
What the cross-eyed one ejaculated at this point will not bear repetition. He actually so far forgot himself as to threaten Dorothy with bodily violence if she did not at once obey him. But as the girl only remained seated, with apparent unconcern, upon the biscuit tin, and gazed mildly into his face, it became evident to the big rebel that he was only wasting words in thus addressing her. He prepared to ascend the snow bank, jump thence on to the roof, and fetch her down by force.
Dorothy, like Sister Ann of Bluebeard fame, gazed anxiously around and listened with all the intensity born of her desperate state; but there was nothing to be seen or heard. Only Bruin had risen again and was coming slowly towards the hut. A bright scheme suggested itself to the girl; but she would wait until the cross-eyed one discovered how utterly rotten and soft the snow-bank had become before putting it into practice. She must gain all the time she could.
The rebel managed to reach the top of the drift, which was nearly on a level with the roof of the hut, without sinking more than an inch or two into the snow; but when he braced himself preparatory to springing across the intervening wind-cleared space, the crust gave and down he went nearly up to the waist. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank. His flow of language was so persistent and abusive that even Bruin, on the other side of the hut, stood still to listen and wonder. It was as much as Dorothy could do to keep from laughing heartily at the fellow's discomfiture, but she restrained herself, as such a course might only drive him to some unpleasant and desperate measure. She, however, thought it a pity that only one of them should be struggling in the drift. She must drive the other into it also. She therefore rose and called to the second villain, on whose evil face there was an unmistakable grin. Like Bastien, and most of his kind, he had no objections to seeing his own friends suffer so long as he himself came by no harm.
"Ho, you there!" she cried in apparent indignation. "Don't you see your friend in the drift? Why don't you give him a hand out? Are you afraid?"
But the second villain was too old a bird to be caught with chaff, and replied by putting his mitted hand to one side of his nose, at the same time closing his right eye. He bore eloquent testimony to the universality of the great sign language.
"You are a coward!" she exclaimed, disgusted with the man, and at the failure of her little scheme.
"A nice comrade, you! I wonder you ever had the spirit to rebel!"
This was too much for the rogue's equanimity, and he launched into such a torrent of abuse that the girl was obliged to put her fingers in her ears. He, however, went to the trouble of crawling over the snowdrift and picking up the gun which his worthy mate had dropped when he broke through the crust By this time the first villain had managed to extricate himself, and had moved into the clear space opposite the front door of the hut The eyes of the two were now fairly glowing with rage, and they prepared to storm the position. One of them was in the act of giving a back to the other when. Dorothy appeared on the scene with the sapling.