While Sandy was snatching a hasty bite in the dining room, a fresh span of horses was substituted for the tired beasts which had drawn the pung for nearly forty miles since morning.
It happened that Sandy had no passengers and the pung was empty save for a couple of mail bags and a few packages.
“Jim tells me thot you boys is a wantin’ to go up ter Jackman,” Sandy greeted them as he came out picking his teeth.
“That’s right,” Bob assured him.
“Foine, an’ it’s meself thot’ll be glad ter have company, but I dunno when we’ll be after gittin’ thar, what wid all the slush an’ mud. But throw yer traps in an’ we’ll be after startin’,” and the sandy-haired Irishman jumped to the driver’s seat and gathered the reins in his hand.
They found the driver very much inclined to talk and very inquisitive as to the object of their journey; but Bob, thinking it best not to be too candid, made evasive answers to his rather pointed questions. The road was, as Sandy had declared, in bad shape. In places the snow had entirely disappeared, and where it still lay it was so soft that the horses sank nearly to their knees in many places. Several times the pung nearly overturned as it slued into a washout.
At the end of an hour they had covered about three miles and Sandy declared, with a shake of his head, that they would be lucky if they reached the end of their journey by midnight.
But along about five o’clock it began to grow colder, and soon the temperature was falling rapidly.
“We’ll be makin’ better time soon an’ it gits mouch colder,” Sandy declared, as he buttoned up the collar of his mackinaw.
At six o’clock they stopped to feed the horses and eat the lunch which they had brought from the hotel. When they started again, about three quarters of an hour later, they found that the going was much better. The slush and mud had stiffened until only occasionally did the horses break through and it was getting harder every minute. A cold wind had sprung up and the boys were glad to take Sandy’s advice and get down on the bottom of the pung and wrap themselves in the blankets, of which there was a generous supply.