“Well, ’less something breaks, we’re goin’ to get there; and if harness and runners hold out, we’re goin’ to get home again,” he declared. “Dunno’s I’d call it exactly a pleasure trip, but I guess we’ll pull through somehow, as the molasses candy said to the sugar bowl. Maybe it’ll be sleighin’, and then again maybe it’ll be draggin’ through mud; but we’ve got a good, husky team o’ hosses, and if none of the bridges takes a notion to go floatin’ down stream, we’ll manage. And further deponent sayeth not.”
“But is it going to rain?” Sam persisted.
“Well, wind’s in the east. And if it stays there long enough, squirrels and pickerel will be classin’ alike in p’int o’ dampness.”
“But is it going to stay there?”
Lon clucked to his horses; then he glanced at the sky again.
“Huh! I reckon so—sooner or later there’ll be rain. How soon and how much? Huh! Bein’ able to answer jest sech questions is how old Noah went and got his reputation. And he didn’t leave me his recipe for guessin’ right. So I ain’t committin’ myself, sonny.”
Varley laughed with the others; then gave himself to a study of the weather conditions. It was not a cheering prospect that met his eye. All the winter brilliancy of the landscape had faded; the great blanket of snow covering the earth was now a very wet blanket in fact and in appearance; the leafless trees towered black and somber. Streams ran brim-full. Where there were rapids, they showed clear of ice, and along the smoother stretches, where the break-up had not yet come, the freshets poured along above the frozen layer as well as below it.
Varley began to appreciate what the “breaking up of a hard winter” meant. He wondered, indeed, that Sam and Lon should have undertaken a trip on such a day, and then, correctly enough, inferred that they were keeping the engagement to visit Sugar Valley, because there was no certainty that delay would bring better conditions. In spite of the slush and the puddles, the big sleigh was making very good time. Satisfied that Lon knew his business, Paul quietly studied his companions. Poke and Step were silent and subdued, but the others were chatting briskly enough. He suspected a bit of method in this, and jumped to a conclusion that was not far from the mark. Whatever was amiss with Step and Poke, the club was treating it as a secret, not to be discussed before even so sympathetic an outsider as he was himself. To tell the truth, Paul admired the new evidence of the strength of the bond which held this group of chums. As it happened, he had many friends but few intimates; and sometimes he had longed for just such close association as the Safety First Club provided.
For a time the road crossed ground with which Varley had some slight acquaintance, but then Lon turned sharply to the left and toward the narrow cleft in the hills which Sam once had pointed out to Paul as the entrance to Sugar Valley. On close inspection the pass was narrower even than it had appeared to be from a distance. On both sides the rocky banks rose so steeply as to suggest cliffs, while at their base flowed the Sugar River, a considerable stream, at least in spring time. It was spanned by two bridges, one a gaunt steel structure carrying railroad tracks, the other a covered highway bridge, of the old-fashioned wooden construction. Both these bridges were close to the mouth of the glen, and their piers seemed half to fill the space between the banks of the river. The water was swirling merrily about the masonry, against which from time to time little floes of ice dashed with a fine crash; a ragged fringe of fragments lined the banks; the air was full of spray of a peculiarly chilly and penetrating quality. The boys dug their chins into the collars of their overcoats as the sleigh dragged across the bridge.
“Whew! Talk about your cold storage plants!” cried the Trojan—and that was what all of them thought.