She put more wood on the fire, for, though the wind had gone down a little and the snow was not falling so rapidly, it was still cold. But the blazing wood threw out a grateful heat, and Nan and Mrs. Bimby sat about the stove, waiting for the help Bert was to send.
Bert felt a little lonely as he plunged into the woods and lost sight of the cabin. Though it was daylight, and the woods were not dark because of the white snow, still Bert felt a little lonesome. He wished Nan had come with him.
“But I guess a girl couldn’t get along,” he said to himself, as he plunged through drift after drift. Indeed it was hard work for Bert, sturdy as he was, to wade along, especially as he had on no boots, not having expected a storm when he and Nan started after chestnuts.
“Now let me see,” said Bert Bobbsey, talking to himself half aloud, to make his trip seem less lonesome. “The first thing I want to do is to find the brook. I can follow that back to camp, I’m pretty sure. But it’s a good way from here, I guess.”
He remembered having seen the brook just before he and Nan reached the first chestnut grove, where they found the squirrels and chipmunks had taken most of the supply, making the children go farther on. And then the Bobbsey twins had rather lost sight of the stream of water.
Bert knew it might be almost hidden from sight under overhanging banks of snow, but he knew if he could come upon the water course it would be the surest thing to follow to get back to camp. So as he trudged along, into and out of drifts, he looked eagerly about for a sign of the brook, which, as it went on, widened and ran into the mill pond near Cedar Camp.
Bert was all by himself in the snowy woods. The cabin, where his sister and Mrs. Bimby waited for him to bring help, was lost to sight amid the trees. For the first time since leaving Cedar Camp Bert began to feel lonesome and afraid.
It was so still and quiet in the woods! Not a sound! No birds fluttered through the trees or called aloud. The birds that had not flown south were, doubtless, keeping under shelter until they dared venture out to look for food, which some of them would never find.
“There isn’t even a crow!” said Bert aloud, and his voice, in that white stillness, almost startled him by its loudness.
He reached the top of a little hill, where there was not quite so much snow, the wind having blown it off, and there Bert stopped for a moment, looking about. It was a lonesome and dreary scene that lay before him. Not a house in sight, only a stretch of snow and trees, and the wind howled mournfully through the bare, leafless branches.