"All safe, sir! Safe in our house, and in bed and asleep by this time."
"And did you come down through this howling storm to tell me?" cried Uncle Tom.
"Yes, sir. But that wasn't anything so very much, you know: it was down-hill and downwind, too."
"Well, you may think what you like about it—but so may I, too; and my opinion is that there isn't another boy in the country would have done it. I shan't forget your service, Dick. You may count on that. I shan't forget it!"
Nor did he—as you will see.
CHAPTER VI The Professor's Story
What a change had come over the landscape when, at sunrise next morning, I jumped out of bed and went to the door to look out. Though the sky was as clear and as blue as ever, though Mescalero, swept bare by the wind, looked much as usual, all the lower parts of the range, except the crowns of the ridges, were buried under the snow. The woods were full of it; every hollow was leveled off so that one could hardly tell where it used to be; while the narrow valley itself was ridged and furrowed by great drifts piled up by freaks of the wind. It was cold, too, for with the falling of the wind and the clearing of the sky the temperature had dropped to zero. As so often happens in these parts, winter had arrived with a bang.