“I believe you,” Robert Crimmins replied, blowing on his numb fingers.
Tom, meanwhile, combed the region all around for dead wood. The supply was none too large, for they were perilously close to timber-line; and under the cloud darkness was coming on early, to make the job harder. But he finally found a large dead tree, down in a sheltered hollow by the stream, and got four or five good logs out of that, and a lot of smaller stuff. The two tents were pitched facing each other, with a camp-fire and Joe’s fire pit between, and with the surrounding evergreens for a windbreak and the tent flaps open to catch the heat, they were pretty comfortable that evening, though every one wore his sweater, and Joe and Tom, who had brought their mackinaws, were glad enough to put them on, too.
Nobody undressed that night at all, except to take off his boots and put on an extra pair of socks instead. The wind was rising steadily, the tents shook, the evergreens over them sighed and whistled, and Joe lay awake for the first time since he had been in the Park, with a curious feeling that something was going to happen.
He got to sleep at last, but he woke up presently—it seemed to him that he woke up immediately—and peering through the tent flap saw no sign of a fire. At least, he thought, the embers ought still to be glowing. He slipped out of his blankets as softly as he could, climbed over Mills, who was sleeping nearest the entrance, and started to unbuckle the flap. As he did so, a gust of wind hit the tent, half lifting it off its pole, and blew the flap wildly in. As it blew in, something soft and cold and stinging hit Joe’s face. Snow! He stuck out his head for an instant, and all he could see was a kind of swirling, waving, hissing white darkness. It was bitter cold, too, and the fire was out. Dimly he could see the outline of the other tent, and the roof of it was white with drift. No use trying to build up the fire in that! He fought the wind to close the flap again.
But the swirl of the snow in his face had waked the Ranger.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“A blizzard,” Joe replied, as another gust of wind strained the canvas and rattled the guy ropes.
“I thought something would come out of this,” said Mills. “Hang it, we ought to have camped lower down. I’d rather be drowned than frozen.”
Tom woke up now, and they lighted the camp lantern, to peep out into the night.
A voice, half drowned in the roar of the gale, came across from the other tent.