“Can we turn back and stay at Youde’s?”
“Some of the road behind us would be as badly drifted as Little Deer valley,” replied Jim. “I guess the only thing is to grind ahead and trust that the gas holds out.”
For a time they made steady progress, the bus rumbling along smoothly and the heater throwing out a steady blast of warm, dank air. Then they rolled down a gentle slope and onto the flat of Little Deer valley, which was more than half a mile wide.
The driver stopped and went out to wade through the drifts. He came back to report that they might make it although in places the drifts were nearly up to the tops of the fence posts.
“It’s going to mean plenty of shoveling,” he warned them.
“We’ve got to go on,” said Miss Bruder. “If we get stuck at least we’re that much closer to the road. Perhaps we could walk to the main highway.”
Janet saw Jim glance sharply at Miss Bruder. Perhaps she didn’t realize the seriousness of their situation, or perhaps she was masking her thoughts with those words.
The gears ground again, the motor took up its burden, and they lurched ahead, churning through the deepening snow.
The air was colder now. There was no warmth from the heater. Something had gone wrong with the motor or a pipe had frozen. No matter then. Getting through the drifts was uppermost in their minds.
Gradually the straining progress of the bus slowed, finally stopped, the gears clashed, and they lurched backward several hundred feet. Then they plunged ahead again, burrowing deeper into the snow.