A CALL FOR HELP
Doggedly, the boys fought their way on through the blizzard.
Once Joe Hardy stumbled and fell prone in the snow. He was up again
in a moment, but the incident testified to the difficulty of their
progress. The cliff seemed no nearer. To add to their peril twilight
was gathering and the gloom of the blizzard was intensified.
"We've _got_ to make it," Frank muttered, gritting his teeth.
The boys were strung out in single file, Chet Morton in the rear. All
were tiring. Frank skated more slowly to give the others an opportunity
of catching up. When they were together again he waved his arm toward
the gray mass that loomed through the storm ahead.
"Almost there!"
His words gave all of them new courage, and they redoubled their
efforts. In a short while the force of the wind seemed to be
decreasing. They were now gaining the shelter of the cliff. The snow
had not collected so heavily on the surface of the ice, and they made
better progress. In a few minutes they had skated into an area of
comparative calm. They could still hear the screaming of the wind, and
when they looked back the entire lake was an inferno of swirling snow,
but in the shelter of the steep rocks they were protected from the full
fury of the blizzard.
"Some storm!" grunted Chet, as he skated slowly to the base of the
cliff and sat down on a frost-encrusted boulder.
"I'll say it is," agreed Jerry Gilroy, following Chet's example.
The Hardy boys leaned against the rocks. They were safe enough in this
shelter unless the wind changed completely about, which was unlikely.
With the approach of darkness it was growing colder, but all the boys
were warmly clad and they had few fears on that score. Their chief
worry was lest the storm should not die down in time to permit of their
return to Bayport that night, because they knew their people would be
worrying about them.
"I see where mother won't let _me_ go skating again," declared Chet.
"She's always afraid I'll get drowned or lost or something, and now
she'll get such a scare that I'll never get out again."
"Aunt Gertrude will crow over this for a month," Joe put in. "She said
before we started that we'd be sure to get into some kind of a mess."
"Well, we'll just have to wait here until the storm blows over, that's
all," said Frank philosophically. "Even if it does get dark we can
follow the river all right and get home easily enough. Perhaps the
storm won't last very long."
The boys settled themselves down to wait in the lee of the high black
rocks until the fury of the blizzard should have diminished. There
seemed to be no indication that the storm was dying down and they
resigned themselves to a wait of at least an hour. Frank scouted around
in search of firewood, planning to light a blaze, but any wood there
may have been along the shore had long since been snowed under and he
had to give up the attempt.
While the boys are thus marooned by the storm in the shelter of the
cliff it might be best to introduce them to new readers of this series.
Frank and Joe Hardy, sixteen and fifteen years old respectively, were
the sons of Fenton Hardy, an internationally famous private detective,
living in Bayport, on the Atlantic Coast. Although still in high
school, both boys had inherited many of their father's deductive
tendencies and his ability in his chosen profession and it was their
ambition to some day become detectives themselves.
Their father had made an enviable name for himself. For many years he
was with the New York Police Department, but had resigned to accept
cases on his own account. He was known as one of the most astute
detectives in the country and had solved many mysteries that had
baffled city police and detective forces.
In the first volume of this series, "The Hardy Boys: The Tower
Treasure," Frank and Joe Hardy solved their first mystery, tracing
down a mysterious theft of jewels and bonds from a mansion on the
outskirts of Bayport after their father had been called in on the case
and had been forced to admit himself checkmated. The boys had received
a substantial reward for their efforts and had convinced their parents
that they had marked abilities in the work they desired to follow.
The second volume, "The Hardy Boys: The House on the Cliff," recounted
the adventures of the boys in running down a criminal gang operating in
Barmet Bay, and in the third volume, "The Hardy Boys: The Secret of the
Old Mill," they aided their father materially in rounding up another
gang.
The volume just previous to the present volume, "The Hardy Boys: The
Missing Chums," told how they sought their chums, Chet Morton and
Biff Hooper, who had been kidnapped by a gang of crooks and taken to a
sinister island off the coast.
As the boys waited in the shelter of the rocks they talked of some of
the adventures they had undergone.
"This is the first bit of excitement we've had since we left Blacksnake
Island," declared Chet. "I thought we were never going to have any
adventures again."
"This isn't much of an adventure," Frank said, smiling, "but perhaps
it's better than nothing. Although I must say it's a mighty cold
and uncomfortable one," he added. "I wonder if we'll ever have any
adventures like the ones we've gone through already."
"I think you've had your fill," grumbled Jerry Gilroy. "You've had more
excitement than any other two fellows in Bayport."
"I suppose we have. Like the time the smugglers caught dad and kept him
in the cave in the cliff and then caught us when we went to rescue him."
"And the time we got into the old mill and found the gang at work,"
added Joe.
"Or the fight on Blacksnake Island when you came after Biff Hooper and
me," Chet Morton put in. "You've had enough adventure to last you a
lifetime. What are you kicking about?"
"I'm not kicking. Just wondering if we'll ever have anything else
happen to us."
"If this blizzard keeps up all night you can chalk down another
adventure in your little red book," declared Jerry. "That is, if we
don't freeze to death."
"Cheerful!"
"It doesn't look as if the wind is dying down, anyway."
They looked out into the swirling screen of snow. The wind, instead
of diminishing, seemed to be increasing in fury and the snow was even
sweeping in little gusts and eddies into their refuge at the base
of the rocks. The swirling snow hid the opposite shore of the lake
completely and the howling of the wind was rising in volume.
Suddenly they heard a strange crashing noise that came from directly
overhead.
All looked up, startled.
"What was that?" asked Chet.
The crashing noise continued for a moment or so, then died away,
drowned out by the roar of the wind and the sweep of the snow.
"Perhaps it was a tree blown over," suggested Jerry.
"A tree wouldn't make that much noise," Frank objected. For the
crash had been unusually loud and prolonged and it had seemed to be
accompanied by the snapping of timbers.
The boys waited, listening, but the sound had died away.
"It was right above us," Joe said.
Hardly had he spoken the words than there came a second crash, louder
than the first, and then, with a rush and a roar, a great avalanche
of snow came hurtling down upon the boys from the side of the cliff.
The snow engulfed them, swept over them, almost buried them as they
struggled to avoid it. Then, in all the uproar, they heard another
thundering crash close at hand.
Spluttering and struggling to extricate themselves from the avalanche
of snow that had swept down from above, the boys could scarcely realize
what had happened. As for the origin of the crashing sound they had
heard, it was still a mystery.
Then, above the clamor of the gale that seemed to rage in redoubled
volume, they heard a faint cry. It came from the fog of swirling snow
close by. Then the shrieking wind drowned the sound out, but the boys
knew that it had been a cry for help.
Frank struggled free and lent Joe a helping hand until they were both
clear of the great heap of snow and ice. Chet Morton and Jerry Gilroy
also fought their way clear without difficulty, for the snow was soft
and the avalanche had not been of great proportions.
"I heard some one call," Frank shouted. "Listen."
Shivering with cold, the boys stood knee-deep in snow and listened
intently.
There came a lull in the gale.
Then, faintly, they heard the shout again.
"Help!" came the cry. "Help! Help!"
It came from somewhere immediately before them, and as the wind shifted
just then Frank caught sight of a dark object against the surface of
the snow.
"Come on!" he shouted to the others, and began plunging through the
snow over to the object he had spied.
The boys reached it in a few minutes. To their unbounded astonishment
they found that they were confronted by the side of a small cottage!