We marched on for two hours, and then our fear of the weather proved to be well founded. A furious snowstorm came on suddenly, and a violent wind whirled the flakes into our faces; the cold grew intense, and we could not see a yard ahead of us. A more terrific blizzard we had none of us known in the past.
For a little while we floundered on resolutely, blinded and half-frozen, becoming more exhausted each minute. The storm seemed to be getting worse, and we encountered great drifts. There was not a sign by which we could steer in the right direction, and we could not be sure that we were not traveling in a circle.
“Hold on, boys; this won’t do!” Tom Arnold cried at last. “We can’t go any farther. We must find shelter and lie close until the morning, or until the weather takes a turn.”
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A PAINFUL MYSTERY.
But how and where should we seek shelter? Each man, I am sure, asked himself that question uneasily, and the quest grew more hopeless as we groped our way on for a quarter of an hour, our faces set against the stinging cold wind and the biting snowflakes. Arnold was leading, and I was some distance back, trudging alongside of Flora, and trying to keep up her spirits.
But good fortune befell us when we least expected it. Exhausted and half-blinded, we suddenly emerged from the tangled forest on a bit of an open space. Before us was the bed of a frozen stream, now filled up with drifted snow, and from the farther side of it a hill towered steeply, affording almost complete protection from the violence of the wind. A short distance on our left, nestled at the base of another hill, was a little Indian village, long since deserted—a dozen tepees half-buried in the snow, a couple of canoe frames protruding from a drift, and some worn-out snowshoes hanging from a tree.
“By Jupiter! I know the spot,” cried Tom Arnold, in a tone of consternation and astonishment. “I remember the village and the stream! Why, men, we are away out of our reckoning—on the wrong tack altogether. This shows how easily a fellow can get lost in a blizzard, no matter how old a hand he is.”