But his speech was drowned by a jubilant shout. In spite of the driving snow, and in spite, too, of a veil of intervening branches, Sam had made out a chimney and the shoulder of a steep roof.
CHAPTER XXVI
OLD FRIENDS MEET
Down the slope rushed the boys like charging troops bursting into an enemy’s stronghold. Cold and weariness were forgotten. They dashed through drifts; they broke through thickets; they swung themselves over the ruins of an ancient rail-fence. Then they were in a clearing, and hurling themselves at the door of a little house, against which the snow lay banked to the window sills.
Sagging hinges and rusted bolt gave before the attack. The door yielded, and in poured the club like an irresistible tide. Once within the shelter, however, the boys pulled up abruptly, glancing about them with expressions portraying wonder and disappointment.
At a glance it was plain that the house had not been tenanted for a long time. The room in which they found themselves was fairly large, but bare of furnishings, unless a broken chair, an empty box and a strip of ragged carpet in one corner could be so described. A great fireplace at one end yawned cold and empty. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and such light as sifted into the place came through breaks in the windows rather than through the grimy panes remaining intact. Overhead was a ceiling of rough boards, through whose cracks much snow had sifted, testifying to the condition of the roof; while beneath each window a considerable bank of snow had formed. The walls gave protection, in a measure, from the blasts, but the air had a damp chill more paralyzing than the cutting wind.
Sam was the first to rise to the situation.
“Here, fellows, we’ve got to have a fire!” he sang out. “Herman, take that axe of yours and go for the old rails in the fence. Step and Trojan, go with him, and mind you lug in the driest stuff you can find—if there is anything dry. Shark, help Poke out of his snow-shoes. Now, Orkney”—he turned to the silent Tom—“you and I’ll tackle the fine work. Got any matches?”
Orkney drew a handful from his pocket. “Lucky I was cookee at No. 1,” said he. “Had to look after the fires, you know.”
Sam had torn a board from the old box, and with his knife was ripping off long, curling shavings. He had built them in a neat pyramid on the hearth, when Step and the Trojan staggered in, their arms full of billets. They stood, watching Sam closely, while he made careful choice of their offerings. As he had feared, none of the wood could be called dry, though some of it was not quite so wet as the rest.
Poke and the Shark were beating their arms against their bodies.