"Hugh," said she, "are you here?"
"I am here," replied the voice, "but it is not Hugh."
"Why, Antonio, is it you?" said Ellen. She had recognized Antonio's voice. "How came you to be here?"
"How came you to be here, is the question, I think?" rejoined Antonio.
"I have got snow-shoes." said Ellen. "I heard cries and I came out to see. My mother and Rodolphus are up the road a little way, in a sleigh, and the snow is covering them over very fast. I'll blow my horn for them."
Here Ellen blew another long and loud blast with her horn, and immediately afterward she heard the distant call of her mother and of Rodolphus answering it together.
"All right," said Antonio, "they answer. Now the first thing to do is to get up to them. Give me the snow-shoes, and I think I can carry you right along."
"Oh, no," said Ellen, "I am too heavy."
"Let us try," said Antonio. So saying he climbed up out of the snow, as well as he could, and put on the snow-shoes. They were very easily put on. Antonio found that the snow-shoes bore him up completely, but Ellen had sunk down into the drift when she was deprived of them. Antonio, however, soon raised her again, and took her in his arms. Enveloped as she was in her cloak, she made a rather large looking load, though she was not very heavy. Still it was difficult to carry even a light load, walking with such shoes, on such a yielding surface, and in such a storm. Antonio was obliged to stop very often to rest and to take breath. At such times, Ellen would blow her horn, and listen for the answer. Thus they gradually got back safely to the sleigh.
As they had thus come up the hill, Antonio, in the intervals of his conversation with Ellen, had determined on the course which he would pursue. He knew that there was a snow-sled at Mr. Randon's house; that is, a hand sled made light and with the shoes of the runners very broad and flat. By means of this construction, the sled had, like the snow-shoes, the property of not sinking much in the snow. Antonio determined to go himself up to the house on the snow-shoes—leaving Ellen with Rodolphus and her mother in the sleigh—and get this sled, and he hoped, by means of it, to draw them all up safely one by one. The poor horse, he thought, would have to be left in the drifts to die.