The ice—it was more than mere sleet that whipped them so unmercifully—cut such parts of their faces as were bare, needle sharp and stinging. From under the peak of his cap each man could now see scarcely a yard before him. They stumbled on as though they were in an unlighted cavern. Once Joe stepped off the track and plunged waist deep in a hole. Hunt hauled him back by the rope, and after a moment they went on again.
They reached the farther bank and stumbled up the sleet-covered strand, standing in a group together for a minute to get their breath and to ease the binding-rope about their bodies.
“I reckon I can smell out the path, boys,” said their leader, so they started off again.
As they pressed upward, now and then they shouted—sometimes in unison. But their voices could not penetrate the gale far. The sounds were blown back into their faces as though rebounding from a blank wall.
At a point some distance up the path Hurley halted again and allowed the others to approach. He bawled at them:
“There’s a place yonder somewhere under the cliff—I remember it—a half-shelter. They might have reached it.”
“Don’t get off the path, Joe!” warned Jib Collins.
“But if the girls got off the path?”
“We don’t want to lose our way,” objected Mack.
“I’m going to take a look!” ejaculated Hurley obstinately. But he could not untie the knot which held him. He fumbled at it. “Got a knife, Willie?”