Even the short time they had spent talking with the old man had made a great change out of doors. It was now snowing furiously, and the flakes, instead of falling, were driven straight before the wind which had increased to a gale, here sweeping the ground bare, there piling high white drifts which, to the boys’ excited imaginations, looked in the uncertain light like little mounds heaped over a human body. Twice they started out into the road; twice they were beaten back, and stood breathless in the shelter of the cabin. Then Louis said, as he shut his teeth tightly together, to steady his voice,—
On and on they struggled, peering this way and that, now and again stopping to call the child’s name, then pressing onward once more. At length Stanley halted.
“You’ll have to leave me, boys,” he panted. “I can’t go on any farther.”
“You must,” said Harry decidedly. “It’s sure death to stop here. Wing, you take hold one side of him, and I will the other. Steady, old fellow; keep up your courage and try again. We’ll get to a house soon.”
Yielding to their encouragement, Stanley made another effort, and the three boys went on, arm in arm, floundering through the drifts which were every moment growing deeper. The road had come out into the open fields again, and it was becoming difficult to keep in the track, while, to add to the danger of getting lost, the early winter twilight was settling down around them and they could see but a few paces ahead. Stanley’s steps were growing more and more uncertain, and the other boys staggered under the weight of supporting him. Their very eyelids were pressed together with the sweep of the snow, and it was well-nigh impossible for them to glance up, as they plodded onward, with only chance—or a higher, unseen power, to guide them.
They listened and heard, close at hand, the welcome sound of a dog’s bark.
“There, Stan,” said Louis, trying to speak lightly; “we’re all right now. All we have to do is to follow our noses till we get to the house, and then we can get warm and dry before we go on.”
They renewed their efforts, and twenty steps more brought them to the farmhouse, only twenty steps, but to the chilled and weary boys they seemed like twenty miles. Without waiting to knock, and only intent on finding warmth and rest, they pushed open the heavy kitchen door and stumbled in, dazed with the rush of light and heat which met them. Two women sprang up as they entered, leaving a small figure before the fire. The figure turned and calmly remarked,—