“Fine!” answered Dick. “But save your breath, Sandy. You’ll need it.”
Monotonously, heavily, the moccasined feet of the three snow-covered figures crunched along the unbroken trail. In the lead, Toma glided ahead with an untiring energy that filled Dick with admiration. He wondered what the young half-breed was thinking about. Was he, too, secretly fearful of some new impending danger lurking in their path?
He noticed presently that the shadows, flung across the floor of the valley, were gradually becoming darker and darker, a heavy dusk had settled around them. Toma, barely four feet away, was a vague, indistinct blur, completely shutting off his view of the trail in front of him.
That the fury of the blizzard had not abated, was easily apparent. He could still hear the wind howling above their heads, and feel the snow as it sifted quietly down. At every step his feet sunk into the soft, yielding surface, and his heart pounded like a trip-hammer from the continuous, never-ending exertion.
“How much farther?” Sandy demanded, a note of despair in his voice. “How much farther, Toma?”
“No can tell.”
Sandy mumbled and complained to himself. He came stumbling and panting behind Dick, keeping up an incessant babbling or muttering that filled his friend with alarm.
“How much farther?” he asked again.
Toma grunted.
“No can tell.”