Dick and Sandy looked off across the sullen expanse of the Saskatoon. As Toma had said, it was filled with a slow-moving mass of slush, formed by night freezes and day thaws.
They fell to work like Trojans on a raft, lashing dead logs together with tiny saplings and tough vines. It was a cumbersome raft that they at last shoved out into the icy stream. With poles to propel the unwieldy craft, they began the perilous trip across the river. The delay caused by the building of the raft had given their pursuers time to overtake them, and at any moment they expected to hear a shout or rifle shots from the shore they were slowly leaving behind.
One side of the raft was heavier than the other, and out in the current they came near being spilled off, before they followed Toma’s example and balanced the logs by shifting their weight from side to side.
Pushing on desperately, they reached midstream, when their pursuers reached the river. But the few shots that were fired fell short. The boys had poled the raft out of range. Waving their hands to the chagrined men they reached the other shore and, abandoning their raft, hastened on.
Once more snow was spitting out of the gray heavens, and it was growing steadily colder. They hiked for three miles, then Toma advised a halt The guide began immediately throwing up a shelter of boughs. Dick and Sandy helped with a will, and they finished none too soon. With the fall of night the blizzard Toma had prophesied swept down upon them like a thousand, shrieking demons.
When the boys awoke on the following morning, numb and stiff from cold in spite of the protection of their crudely constructed shelter, a full six inches of snow covered the surface of their blankets.
“Snow make um much warmer to sleep,” Toma explained to them, as he crawled out of his bed, very much as a husky gets out of a snowdrift.
Dick turned his eyes towards the open door of the shelter and shivered. Contrary to his expectations the storm had not abated during the night. A shining, white wall of snow almost shut out any view of their camp surroundings, while the wind continued to howl furiously.
To all appearances, the boys were shut in by the high, white walls of a snow prison. Snow sifted in the door of their shelter and through the numerous cracks in the walls.