“Well, we can only do our best,” Jack shouted back, as he plunged forward, sinking nearly to his knees in the light snow, despite his snow-shoes.
Until they were out on the lake, facing into the storm, they had not realized the full strength of the wind; but here, where it had a clear sweep, they were hardly able to stand against it. But bending low, they crept on inch by inch, the beating particles of snow stinging their faces like so many needles.
“It’s worse than looking for a needle in a hay stack,” Jack yelled as they again stopped to listen. “But,” he added, “he can’t be very far away or we’d never have heard him.”
“I believe we’re out far enough,” Bob declared a few minutes later. “He could hardly have been farther away than this. Suppose you circle round to the right and I’ll do the same to the left. Yell if you find anything,” he shouted, as he started off at right angles to the course they had been pursuing.
It was perhaps ten minutes later that he was brought to a sudden stop by the sound of his brother’s voice faintly piercing the storm.
“Oh, Bob, I’ve found him.”
“I’m a coming,” he shouted, retracing his steps as rapidly as possible.
“Keep calling,” he added, bending his head to avoid so far as possible the stinging snow.
Facing directly into the storm it seemed to the boy that he would never reach his brother, but at last he caught sight of him less than a dozen feet ahead. Jack was on his knees in the snow holding a man’s head close against his breast.
“He’s pretty far gone, I’m afraid,” he shouted, as Bob plowed his way to his side. “He was entirely covered with the snow and I’d never have found him if I hadn’t stepped on him,” he explained.