"Yes! What are you doing here?" chorused the rest.
"Lemme get near the fire?" begged Hen, in a choking, sobbing voice. "I"m nearly frozen."
"Don"t shut that door yet," called Dan, moving forward. "We didn"t know it was snowing. I want to see if it"s a big snow."
"You bet it is," chattered Hen. "It"s a blizzard, and I don"t care how soon that door is shut."
"You"re not giving orders here, remember," retorted Dan crisply, as he went to the open doorway. The others, too, crowded to the doorway. It certainly was a big snow. The flakes were of the largest size, and coming down thickly to the tune of a moaning wind.
"It wasn"t snowing at dark, and now there are at least four inches,"
cried Greg.
"Five inches," hazarded Dave.
"How many, d.i.c.k?"
"Say, are you fellows going to freeze me to death?" called Hen Dutcher, his teeth chattering. He was facing the fire, roasting in front, but with chills running down his spine.
"Close the door, fellows. We can"t see much to-night at any rate, and we"ll see the whole storm in the morning," proposed d.i.c.k. "We don"t want to see Hen freeze to death."
"n.o.body invited him here!"
d.i.c.k turned, wondering who had made that remark, but he could not make up his mind.
"Take off your coat, Hen, and have some hot coffee. We have some left, and it will warm you," d.i.c.k went on, after the door had been closed and barred.
"I"ll have supper and the whole thing," declared Hen promptly. "Don"t you fellows expect to feed your visitors?"
"We"ll feed you," d.i.c.k agreed, "though we had made no plans for visitors and didn"t expect any."
Hen had some difficulty in getting off his coat.
"Are you as stiff as that?" asked Prescott, going to the other fellow"s a.s.sistance.
"I tell you, I"m just about frozen to death," moaned Hen. "My, how cold it came on, just after dark! The wind began to howl, and I could feel the ice forming on my chin every time I breathed. I thought sure I was going to freeze to death in the woods. I"d about given up when I saw your lights."
"How long has it been snowing?" Dave asked.
"Don"t you fellows know?" Hen demanded.
"No; we were in here, getting supper and then eating it. We didn"t know that it had even started to snow."
"It wasn"t snowing at dark, but it began some time after," replied Hen, as he took the chair d.i.c.k offered and sank into it before the warming glow.
"Don"t get too close to the fire until you thaw out a bit," advised d.i.c.k. "If you do you"ll feel it more."
"I feel it now," groaned Hen, beginning to moan. "My hands are frozen stiff."
They weren"t really frozen, though the hands had been badly nipped. It was twenty minutes before Hen Dutcher cared to move over to the table.
Even then he complained severely of the "stinging" in his hands, feet and chin.
"I"m going out," proposed Dave, reaching for his cap and coat. "I"m going to see for myself just how cold it is."
No one offered to accompany Darrin. He paused, outside, to tap on one of the window panes. Two minutes after that he was back, pounding for admittance.
"Br-r-r-r!" Dave greeted his comrades, as he stepped inside. "Say, I don"t want any more of being out to-night. I"ll bet it"s away down below zero. And how the wind howls and cuts!"
It took Hen Dutcher, after he got started, considerable time to eat his fill. In the meantime the others, restrained by a sense of what was due from hosts, held back their curiosity.
"There, I don"t believe I could eat another mouthful," declared Dutcher, at last, pushing back from the table.
"Now, Hen," invited d.i.c.k, "come over to the fire and tell us how you came to be here."
"Why, I just naturally was hereabouts," declared Hen evasively.
"That won"t quite do," replied d.i.c.k, shaking his head. "What brought you into these woods to-night? Did you expect that we"d invite you in to join us?"
"Nope. Not quite," Hen replied, a crafty look in his eyes.
"Then out with the truth, Hen Dutcher!" broke in Dave.
"I don"t have to tell you fellows, do I?"
"Yes, if you want to stay here to-night!" blurted Tom Reade.
"You fellows wouldn"t put me out in the cold again!" dared Hen.
"Wouldn"t we?" retorted Greg Holmes.
"I just wanted a tramp, and took one," replied Hen sulkily.
"That"s too thin!" snapped Dan Dalzell.
"Then you fellows can invent your own story," offered Hen.
"Out with him, fellows!" called Harry Hazelton, making a dive for Hen.
"Don"t you dare!" bl.u.s.tered Dutcher tremulously.
"Out with Hen, if he doesn"t tell the truth, and the whole of it,"
advised Tom Reade.
"d.i.c.k, you ain"t going to let these fellows do anything of the sort, are you?" quavered Hen. "Why, I"d die if I had to be put out into the storm again."
"Why can"t you tell us the truth, Hen?" asked d.i.c.k quietly, fixing a searching gaze on Dutcher. Then, with a sudden flash of inspiration, d.i.c.k added, "Who was out this way with you?"
"No one," Hen replied.
"Don"t tell us that," warned young Prescott. "Who were the other fellows in the crowd?"