The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound Part 25

"How far along do you think we are, Tolly Tip?" asked Tom Betts, after more time had pa.s.sed, and they began to feel the result of their struggle.

"More'n half way there, I'd be sayin'," the other replied. "Though it do same as if the drifts might be gittin' heavier the closer we draw to the hill. Av ye fale tired mebbe we'd better rist up a bit."

"What, me tired!" exclaimed Tom, disdainfully, at the same time putting new life in his movements. "Why, I've hardly begun to get started so far. Huh! I'm good for all day at this sort of work, I'm so fond of ploughing through the snow."

The forest seemed very solemn and silent. Doubtless nearly all of the little woods folk found themselves buried under the heavy fall of snow, and it would take time for them to tunnel out.

"Listen to the crows cawing as they fly overhead," said Jud, presently.

"They're gathering in a big flock over there somewhere," remarked Paul.

"They're having what they call a crow caucus," explained Jack. "They do say that the birds carry on in the queerest way, just as if they were holding court to try one of their number that had done something criminal."

"More likely they're getting together to figure it out where they can find the next meal," suggested Bobolink, sensibly. "This snow must have covered up pretty nearly everything. But at the worst they can emigrate to the South--can get to Virginia, where the climate isn't so severe."

As they pushed their way onward the boys indulged in other discussions along such lines as this. They were wideawake, and observed every little thing that occurred around them, and as these often pertained to the science of woodcraft which they delighted to study, they found many opportunities to give forth their opinions.

"We ought to be getting pretty near that old hill, seems to me,"

observed Tom, when another hour had dragged by. Then he quickly added: "Not that I care much, you know, only the sooner we see if Hank and his cronies are in want the better it'll be."

"There it is right now, dead ahead of us!" exclaimed Jud, who had a pair of wonderfully keen eyes.

Through an opening among the trees they could all see the hill beyond, although it was so covered with snow that its outlines seemed shadowy, and it was little wonder none of them had noticed it before.

"Not more'n a quarter of a mile off, I should say," declared Tom Betts, unable to hide fully the sense of pleasure the discovery gave him.

"But all the same we'll have a pretty tough time making it," remarked Jud. "It strikes me the snow is deeper right here than in any place yet, and the paths fewer in number."

"How is that, Tolly Tip?" asked Bobolink.

"Ye say, the hill shunted off some av the wind," explained the other without any hesitation; "and so the snow could drop to the ground without bein' blown about so wild like. 'Tis a fine blanket lies ahead av us, and we'll have to do some harrd wadin' to make our way through the same."

"Hit her up!" cried Tom, valiantly. "Who cares for such a little thing as snow piles?"

They floundered along as best they could. It turned out to be anything but child's play, and tested their muscular abilities from time to time.

In vain they looked about them as they drew near the hill; there was not a single trace of any one moving around. Some of the scouts began to feel very queerly as they stared furtively at the snow covered elevation. It reminded them of a white tomb, for somewhere underneath it they feared the four boys from Stanhope might be buried, too weak to dig their way out.

Tolly Tip led them on with unerring fidelity.

"How does it come, Tolly Tip," asked the curious Jud as they toiled onward, "that you remember this hole in the rocks so well?"

"That's an aisy question to answer," replied the other, with one of his smiles. "Sure 'twas some years ago that I do be having a nate little ruction with the only bear I iver kilt in this section. He was a rouser in the bargain, I'd be after tillin' ye. I had crawled into the rift in the rocks to say where it lid whin I found mesilf up aginst it."

"Oh! in that case I can see that you would be apt to remember the hole in the rocks always," commented Jud. "A fellow is apt to see that kind of thing many a time in his dreams. So those fellows happened on the old bear den, did they?"

"We're clost up to the same now, I'm plazed to till ye," announced the guide. "If ye cast an eye beyont ye'll mebbe notice that spur av rock that stands out like a ploughshare. Jist behind the same we'll strike the crack in the rocks, and like as not find it filled to the brim wid the snow."

When the five scouts and their guide stood alongside the spur of rock, looking down into the cavity now hidden by ten feet of snow, they were somehow forced to turn uneasy faces toward one another. It was deathly still there, and not a sign could they see to indicate that under the shroud of snow the four Stanhope boys might be imprisoned, almost dead with cold and hunger.

CHAPTER XXVI

DUG OUT

The boys realized that they had heavy work before them if they hoped to dig a way down through that ma.s.s of snow and reach the cleft in the rocks.

"Just mark out where we have to get busy, Tolly Tip," called out Bobolink, after they had put aside their packs, and primed themselves for work, "and see how we can dig."

"I speak for first turn with the snow shovel!" cried Jud. "It'll bring a new set of muscles into play, for one thing, and that means relief.

I own up that my legs feel pretty well tuckered out."

The woodsman, however, chose to begin the work himself. After taking his bearings carefully, he began to dig the snow shovel deep down, and cast the loosely packed stuff aside.

In order to reach the cleft in the rocks they would have to cut a tunnel through possibly twenty feet or more of snow.

So impatient was Jud to take a hand that he soon begged the guide to let him have a turn at the work. Tolly Tip prowled around, and some of the boys wondered what he could be doing until he came back presently with great news.

"'Tis smoke I do be after smellin' beyant there!" he told them.

"Smoke!" exclaimed Bobolink, staring up the side of the white hill.

"How can that be when there isn't the first sign of a fire?"

"You don't catch on to the idea, Bobolink," explained Paul. "He means that those in the cave must have some sort of fire going, and the smoke finds its way out through some small crevices that lie under a thin blanket of snow. Am I right there, Tolly Tip?"

"Ye sure hit the nail on the head, Paul," he was told by the guide.

"Well, that's good news," admitted Bobolink, with a look of relief on his face. "If they've got enough wood to keep even a small fire going, they won't be found frozen to death anyhow."

"And," continued Jud, who had given the shovel over to Jack, "it takes some days to really starve a fellow, I understand. You see I've been reading lately about the adventures of the Dr. Kane exploring company up in the frozen Arctic regions. When it got to the worst they staved off starvation by making soup of their boots."

"But you mustn't forget," interposed Bobolink, "that their boots were made of skins, and not of the tough leather we use these days. I'd like to see Hank Lawson gnawing on one of _his_ old hide shoes, that's what! It couldn't be done, any way you fix it."

The hole grew by degrees, but very slowly. It seemed as though tons and tons of snow must have been swept over the crest of the hill, to settle down in every cavity it could find.

"We're getting there, all right!" declared Bobolink, after he had taken his turn, and in turn handed over the shovel to Paul.

"Oh! the Fourth of July is coming too, never fear!" jeered Jud, who was in a grumbling mood.

"Why, Tolly Tip here says we've made good progress already," Tom Betts declared, merely to combat the spirit manifested by Jud, "and that we'll soon be half-way through the pile. If it were three times as big we'd get there in the end, because this is a never-say-die bunch of scouts, you bet!"

"Oh! I was only fooling," chuckled Jud, feeling ashamed of his grumbling. "Of course, we'll manage it, by hook or by crook. Show me the time the Banner Boy Scouts ever failed, will you, when they'd set their minds on doing anything worth while? We're bound to get there."

The work went on. By turns the members of the relief party applied themselves to the task of cutting a way through the snow heap, and when each had come up for the third time it became apparent that they were near the end of their labor, for signs of the rock began to appear.

Inspired by this fact they took on additional energy, and the way the snow flew under the vigorous attack of Jud was pretty good evidence that he still believed in their ultimate success.