“What do we do now?” Jerry wanted to know. “Go back and try to find Charley?”
“That’s the worst thing we could do,” Sandy said emphatically. “We’d get lost but good. No, the best thing to do is to wait here until Charley gets back.”
Jerry was skeptical. “I’m not sure even an old woodsman like Charley can find his way back in this soup.”
“Maybe if we shout to him he’ll hear us,” Sandy suggested.
For the next ten minutes the boys pitted their voices against the intensity of the raging storm. But even in their own ears their shouts sounded pitifully weak. At last they gave it up.
“It’s no use,” Sandy said hoarsely. “We’ll just have to wait.” He crouched down in the lee of the sled.
What seemed like hours passed and still there was no sign of Charley. The boys could feel the cold seeping through their heavy clothing and stiffening their limbs. They were both badly frightened now.
“Sandy,” Jerry pleaded, “we just can’t sit here and do nothing. We’ll freeze to death. My nose and cheeks are numb now.”
Sandy fought back the panic that was rising in him too. “If we don’t lose our heads, we’ll be okay, Jerry. The way it looks now, we’re going to have to spend the night here. Tomorrow, they’ll have search parties out looking for us. I bet the rest of the contestants are in the same boat we are.”
“We’ll be stiff as washboards by then,” Jerry prophesied. “Frozen wolf food.”