"Well, that they _will_ search for us as soon as it holds up, we can be sure," Ruth rejoined.
"But, in the meantime? They may be hours finding us. And I am sure I would not know how to start for Snow Camp, if the storm should stop."
"Quite true, Helen."
"We won"t an-n-ny of us start for Snow Camp again!" quavered Lluella Fairfax. "We"ll be frozen dead--that"s what"ll happen to us."
"I _am_ dreadfully cold," said Madge. "How are you, Heavy?"
"Stiff as a poker, thank you!" returned the irrepressible. "I haven"t any feet at all now. They"ve frozen and dropped off!"
"Don"t talk so terribly!" wailed Belle. "We are freezing to death here. I am sleepy. I"ve read that when folks get drowsy out in a storm like this they are soon done for. Now, isn"t that a fact, Madge Steele?"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the older girl; but Heavy broke in with:
"It strikes me that now is the time to make use of Ruth"s matches.
Let"s build a rousing fire."
"How?" demanded Helen. "Where can we get fuel? It"s all under the snow."
"There"s plenty of kindling right under _us_" declared Jennie Stone, vigorously. "And Ruth spoke about the under branches of these trees being dry----"
"And so they are," declared Ruth, struggling to her feet. "We must do something. A rousing fire against this rock will keep us warm. We can heat the rock and then draw the fire out and get behind it. It will be fine!"
"Oh, I can"t move!" wailed Lluella.
"Luella doesn"t want to work," said Madge. "But you get up and do your share, Miss! If you freeze to death here your mother will never forgive me."
Of course, it would be Heavy that got into trouble. She made a misstep off the platform and sunk to her arm-pits in a soft bank of snow, and it was all the others could do to pull her out. But this warmed them, and actually got them to laughing.
"I believe that laughing warms one as much as anything," said Madge.
"Ha, ha!" croaked Heavy, grimly. "_Your_ laughing hasn"t warmed _me_ any. I"m wet to my waist, I do believe!"
"We shall have to have a fire now to dry Jennie," said Ruth. "Now take care."
They had all abandoned their snowshoes long since, and the racquettes would have been of no use to them in the present emergency, anyway. But Ruth and Madge got to the nearest tree, and fortunately it was half dead. They could break off many of the smaller branches, and soon brought to the platform a great armful of the brush.
Ruth"s matches were dry and they heaped up the leaves and rubbish and started a blaze. The other girls brought more fuel and soon a hot fire was leaping against the side of the rock and its circle of warmth cheered them. They got green branches of spruce and pine and brushed away the snow and banked it up in a wall all about the platform, which served them for a camp. Then they sc.r.a.ped the fire out from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones would burn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blaze and the rock.
"This is just scrumptious!" declared Heavy. "We sha"n"t freeze now."
"Not if we can keep the fire going," said Helen.
Being warm, they all tried to be cheerful thereafter. They told stories, they sang their school songs, and played guessing games.
Meanwhile, the wind shrieked through the forest above their "hideout," and the snow continued to fall as though it had no intention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark--and an early dark it would be on this stormy day.
"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I"d saved my snow-shoes."
"What for?" demanded Bell. "What possible good could they have been to you, silly?"
"They were strung with deer-hide, and I have heard that when castaway sailors get very, very hungry, they always chew their boots.
I can"t spare my boots," quoth Jennie Stone, trying to joke to the bitter end.
The wind wheezed above them, the darkness fell with the snow. Beyond the glow of the pile of coals on the rocky ledge, the curtain of snow looked gray--then drab--then actually black. Moon and stars were far, far away; none of their light percolated through the ma.s.s of clouds and falling snow that mantled these big wastes of the backwoods.
"Oh! I never realized anything could be so lonely," whispered Helen in Ruth"s ear.
"And how worried your father and Mrs. Murchiston will be," returned her chum. "Of course, we shall get out of it all right, Helen; but _did_ you ever suppose so much snow could fall at one time?"
"Never!"
"And no sign of it holding up at all," said Madge, who had overheard.
"Sh! Belle and Lluella have curled up here and gone to sleep," said Helen.
"Lucky Infants," observed Madge.
"I"m going to sleep, too," said Heavy, with a yawn.
"There is no danger now. We"re as warm as can be here," Ruth said.
"Why don"t you take a nap, Helen? Madge and I will keep the first watch--and keep the fire burning."
"Suppose there should be wolves--or bears," whispered Helen.
"Ridiculous! no self-respecting beast would be out in such a gale.
They"d know better," declared Madge Steele, briskly.
"And if one does come here," muttered Jennie, sleepily, "I shall kill and eat him."
She nodded off the next moment and Helen followed her example. Madge and Ruth talked to keep each other awake. Occasionally they fought their way to the half-dead tree and brought back armfuls of its smaller branches.
"It"s a shame," declared Miss Steele, "that girls don"t carry knives, and such useful things. Did you ever know a girl to have anything in her pocket that was worth carrying--if she chanced by good luck to have a pocket at all? Now, with a knife, we could get some better wood."
"I know," Ruth admitted. "I know more about camping out than ever I did before. Next time, I"m going to carry things. You never know what is going to happen."
As the evening advanced the cold became more biting. They stirred up the fire with a long stick and the glowing coals threw out increased warmth. The four sleeping girls stirred uneasily, and Madge, putting her hand against the back wall of rock, found that it had cooled.
"When it comes ten o"clock," she said, consulting the watch she carried, "we"ll wake them up, make them stir around a bit, and we"ll drag all these coals over against the rock again. Then we"ll heap on the rubbish and heat up the stones once more. We ought to keep warm after that till near daylight."
"The s.m.u.t is spoiling our clothes," said Ruth.
"I don"t know as that matters much. I"d rather spoil everything I"ve got on than run the risk of freezing," declared Madge, with conviction.
They did what they could to keep the other girls warm; but before the hour Madge had proposed to awaken them, Lluella roused and cried a little because she was so chilly.
"My goodness me, Lu!" yawned Heavy, who was awakened, too, "you are just the _leakiest_ person that I ever saw! You must have been born crying!"