"My eye! I don't like this," declared Hackett, nervously; "Yardsley is the only one who can find his way back to camp in this storm."
"And I can scarcely make out the trail any more."
A few rods further, and Bob stopped short. Then he walked back slowly, with his eyes fixed upon the surface of the snow.
"Have you lost it?" queried Hackett, bending over.
"No—thought I had. It's pretty faint, though. Come on."
Slowly they pushed ahead, now losing the trail, then finding it again. Drifts had settled over it in places, while generally it was becoming so faint as to be almost obliterated.
"I say, Somers," shouted Hackett, at length, as he turned his back to an unusually fierce blast, "unless some one has taken the trouble to look back, it means that we are left away behind."
"That's so! Yardsley was going at a pretty fast clip, while we've just poked along."
Hackett's face began to wear an angry expression. "Did you ever hear of such fierce luck?" he shouted, scarcely able to make himself heard above the roar of the storm.
"What chumps we were not to yell for them in the first place."