"'He doth protest too much!'" quoted Paul, in a low voice. "Come on, Ruth—Alice—shall we walk?"
"I'd like to do it—I'm getting cold standing here," cried Alice, stamping her feet on the edge of the road. "Will you, Ruth?"
"I'm afraid we'd better not—at least until we talk to daddy, my dear," was the low-voiced answer. "Perhaps they can get the sled fixed."
But it did not seem so, for Mr. Macksey, with a puzzled look on his face, was talking earnestly to the two drivers. The accident had happened at a most unfortunate time and place.
"We can't even turn around and go back a different road, the way it is," said the hunter. "There isn't room to turn, and everybody knows you can't back a pung very far before getting stuck."
"Then what are we to do?" asked Mr. Pertell.
The hunter did not answer for a minute. Then he said:
"Well, we've got twelve horses here, and I can manage to squeeze the two rear teams past the stalled sled. Then if you'd like to take chances riding them to Elk Lodge——"
"Never!" cried Mr. Bunn, with lively recollections of a time he had ridden a mule at Oak Farm. "I shall stay here forever, first!"
"Well, if you don't want to do that," said Mr. Macksey, and to tell the truth few members of the company seemed in favor of the idea, "if you don't want to do that I might ride on ahead and get a spare sleigh I have at the Lodge. I could get back here before very late, and we'd get home sooner or later."