Meanwhile the others, now, if never before, feeling the need of shelter, were struggling through the blinding snow toward the broken sled, from which they had wandered a short time before while listening to the attempts made at solving the problem of getting on.
"Isn't this awful!" gasped Ruth, as she clung to Alice.
"Awful? It's just glorious!" cried the young girl. "I wouldn't have missed it for worlds."
"Oh, Alice, how can you say so? We may all die in this terrible storm!"
"I'm not going to think anything of the kind!" returned the other. "We'll get out of it, somehow, and laugh at ourselves afterward for being so silly as to be afraid. Oh, this is great!"
She was really glorying in the fierce outburst of nature. Perhaps she did not understand, or appreciate, it, for she had never seen anything like it before, and in this case ignorance might have been akin to bliss.
But the others, especially the drivers of the two sleds, with anxious looks on their cold faces, were trying to seek the shelter they so much needed, and also look to the restless horses. For the animals were now almost frantic with their desire to get away from that cutting wind and stinging snow.
"Unhitch 'em all!" roared Mr. Macksey to his men. "Take the horses from the sleds and get 'em back of as much shelter as you can find. Otherwise they may bolt and upset something. I'll take old Bald-face, and see if I can't get some kind of help."
Though what sort of aid he could bring to the picture actors in this time of storm and stress he hardly knew. But he was not going to give up without trying.
Ruth and Alice were trying to struggle back through the snow to their sled, and not making very successful work of it, when they felt arms at their sides helping them, and Russ and Paul came along.