"Will it last all day?" Bob asked.
"Mebby."
"But we can keep on just the same?"
"Oui, in the woods heem not so bad."
"How long'll we be in the woods?" Jack asked.
"Fifty, seexty mile."
"Then we won't be out today, that's certain."
It was eight o'clock when they started and still dark. The going was much harder than the day before as the newly fallen snow made the footing even more insecure.
"We'll be lucky if we make twenty miles today," Bob told Jack before they had gone a mile.
Although the thick trees sheltered them to a large extent from the fury of the storm, which had now nearly assumed the proportions of a blizzard, yet the sharp particles of snow stung their faces like needles whenever an open space allowed the wind to reach them with anything like its full force. The snow was also getting deeper and deeper and for the last half mile the Indian had been breaking trail ahead of the team.