Since she could not go back, and since the thought of coming up with Friday was a very comforting one, she plodded on, winking the snow out of her eyes and shaking it off of her cap and out of her hair.
She could scarcely see the tracks ahead of her now, as the new snow was fast obliterating them, and her own steps were made with increasing difficulty. Anyone who has ever tried to snow-shoe over soft, new-fallen snow knows the hardship of Peggy's predicament.
All at once she discovered that she could not lift her left foot at all. Try as she would, it would not rise and swing forward to its next step.--Paralyzed! The horror of her situation, there all alone in the cold and snow, out of sight of everybody, slowly being paralyzed with no one to know or care, filled her with momentary hopelessness.
"Oh, Friday," she thought, "I don't see how you could have snow-shoed so far ahead of me as not to have been caught up with by now. Dear, dear, if I could only find that girl, maybe she would try to drag me to some farm house, or something. If she's one of the Andrews girls she wouldn't want me to freeze to death out here all by myself. Maybe if I called very loud she'd hear and come back--"
"Hello!" she shouted forth into the snow-filled world. But there was no answer and the sound of her own voice, so hollow and lonely, did anything but cheer her up, so she did not try again.
With one last great effort of will she tried to move the stubborn left foot. It was useless,--stuck in the snow and helpless it remained.
"Oh," she murmured, the tears beginning to run down her cheeks to mingle with the wet snow flakes melting there.
All of a sudden a dark form loomed up out of the blinding snow immediately ahead. There was the jar of a collision. Peggy clutched her hands together, not knowing whether to be glad or terrified.
And then she saw that the figure was that of a very red-faced young man, who was also wearing snow-shoes.
"Friday!" Peggy cried out, realizing in one illuminating instant that this was the track-maker she had been following as Crusoe.
"No, it's Saturday," replied the young man, somewhat puzzled, "but I don't see what that has to do with it. I'm awfully afraid I hurt you, bumping into you like that, but I never dreamed there was anyone about in a storm like this. Have you seen anything of a little dog? I lost him a while back."