_A Stress of Circumstances_
The next few weeks brought nothing of adventure to the boys. Their work
went on wonderfully well. They sent down the mountain innumerable ties
and all the cordwood that the trees yielded after the ties were cut.
They sent down also a large number of great timbers for use in bridge
building and the like, but nothing occurred to justify the name of their
camp--Camp Venture.
Their firelight conversations were briefer and less spirited than
before, because they were working so strenuously now that they were
over-weary when supper was done, and they went to bed at least an hour
earlier than they had done before. The earlier novelty of camping had at
last worn out and with it the excitement that tends to keep people
awake.
Nevertheless they constituted a happy company, all the more so because
their work was producing larger results even than they had anticipated.
They were sending down the mountain more ties, more cordwood and many
more of the high-priced bridge timbers than they had expected to send.
Looking over the accounts one evening in February, when the snow was
beginning to melt, Jack said:
"Boys, we've already accomplished more than we expected to do during the
whole winter and spring. If we keep it up at the same rate we shall earn
quite twice the money we expected to make. So Camp Venture is clearly a
success. It is getting so well along in the year now that we need not
fear deep snows or avalanches, or anything of that sort to bother us or
interfere with our work."
"Nevertheless," said the Doctor, returning from an examination of his
scientific instruments, "we're in for a snow storm to-night. It is
already beginning and so far as my instruments are to be trusted, it is
likely to be very heavy, with high winds."
The boys all went out and took a look at the sky. There was as yet no
wind of any consequence, but the snow, in fine, dry, meal-like flakes,
was coming down in a way that promised a heavy fall.
About nine o'clock the boys went to bed--all but Harry Ridsdale, who
stayed outside as the sentry. About ten o'clock the wind rose to a gale
and the roaring of it awakened the Doctor, who instantly arose and with
a brand from the fireplace to serve as a torch, went out to consult his
instruments. When he returned his stamping and brushing off of snow
aroused the others, and the howling of the tempest brought them all into
a very wide-awake condition.
"I say, boys," said the Doctor, throwing the brand he had carried into
the fire again, "this is an awful night. The snow is coming down in
blankets, the wind is blowing at a rate which is between a whole gale
and a hurricane, and of course the snow is drifting terribly."
"All right," said Jack. Then he went to the door and called,--"Come in
here, Harry! We shall have no use for pickets to-night."
In answer to some questions he said:
"No mountaineer is going to prowl about the hills in such a storm as
this. If he did he would be smothered in a snowdrift before he got a
hundred yards from his cabin door. We're perfectly safe for this night
without a sentry, so we'll all crawl into our bunks and go to sleep."
The soundness of Jack's opinion was obvious enough, and so no more
sentries were posted that night. The fire was reinforced with some big
logs and all Camp Venture ventured for once to go to sleep.
The hours passed on. The wind howled more and more fiercely, and but for
the solidity of its thick log walls the house would have shaken in a way
to wake the heaviest sleeper. As it was the boys slept on undisturbed.
Finally the fire burned low, so that it gave very little light in the
cabin. Little Tom waked and feeling no need for further sleep he got up
and piled on some additional logs. Then he went back to bed, but somehow
his eyes would not close again. The other boys also waked up, and, turn
over as they might, could not go to sleep again. Finally Harry, seeing
that all were awake, called out:
"I say, fellows, let's get up and have some breakfast. I for one am
hungry."
"So am I," answered Jack, springing out of bed.
"So say we all of us," responded Tom. "By the way, what time is it?"
Harry fumbled among the Doctor's belongings and looked at that
gentleman's watch.
"Doctor, you forgot to wind your watch last night. It has run down at a
quarter past nine."
"No, I didn't," answered the Doctor, leaping out of bed, where he had
lazily lingered for a time. "I certainly wound it before I went to
bed."
With that he went across the cabin, took the watch, looked at it, and
then put it to his ear.
"It's running all right," he presently said, whereupon the other two
members of the company who had watches brought them out.
All pointed to a quarter past nine.
Just then Jack opened the door and something like half a ton of snow
fell into the house, but no light came with it.
"Boys!" he cried, "we're utterly snowed in. It is a quarter past nine in
the morning, but the house is completely buried in snow! You see there
is no light coming in even through the loosely laid roof, while the
Doctor's windows are as black as midnight. Yet by looking up the chimney
you can see daylight plainly. The fire has kept that open."
"Can there have been twenty odd feet of snowfall in a single night?"
asked Harry in astonishment.
"No, certainly not," answered the Doctor. "We're caught in a snowdrift,
that's all. You see with the fearful gale that has been blowing all
night the snow has drifted greatly and now that I think of it, our house
is peculiarly well situated to be caught in a drift."
"How so, Doctor?"
"Why, the wind has been from the north, northwest, or very nearly north.
Our house stands on a plateau on the northerly side of the mountain.
Less than a hundred feet south of it, rises a high cliff. That, of
course, catches all the snow that comes on a north, northwest wind. Then
again the house itself is an obstruction, catching and holding all the
snow that strikes it. The snow storm has been a tremendous one, probably
a three-foot fall, and we are caught under all of it that ought to have
been scattered over several miles of mountainside."
"Let's postpone the explanations, fellows," broke in Tom, who always
devoted himself to the practical, "and give our attention for the
present to the problem of What to Do Now. That is after all the thing to
think about in every case of emergency, and this is a case of emergency
if ever there was one."
"How do you mean, Tom?" asked Jim Chenowith.
"Why, in the first place, we have less than a quarter of a cord of wood
in the cabin, and, after such a storm, it is likely to turn very cold.
So we must first of all dig a passageway to one of our wood piles, or
else we must freeze to death. We can't get to the spring, of course, and
if we did, it would be frozen up. But we can get all the water we need
by melting snow. The worst of our problems is that of a food supply."
"That's so," said Jack, in something like consternation. "We haven't a
pound of fresh meat on hand and I remember that you, Tom, intended to go
out with your gun to-day to get some. We have eaten up all our hams and
bacon, and we haven't anything left except the coffee, two small pieces
of salt pork, some corn meal and the beans."
"That means," said Tom, "that we've got to dig our way out of here in a
hurry, and we haven't a shovel in the camp."
"No," said Jack, "but we've got a pile of leftover clapboards over there
in the corner, and we can soon make some snow shovels. Let's get to work
at that."
After a breakfast on corn pones--for the pork must be saved for use with
the beans--the boys set to work to manufacture rude shovels that would
do as implements with which to handle snow. For handles they used such
round sticks as they found in their meagre supply of fire wood.
In half an hour the whole company of boys were armed for an attack upon
the snowdrift. In the meantime Tom had thought out methods.
"First of all," he explained, "we must attack the snow directly in front
of the door, and work our way to the top of the drift. We must shovel
that snow into the house, because we haven't any where else to put it.
We'll put on all the kettles we have and reduce as much as we can of the
housed snow to water for use in drinking, cooking, washing and so forth.
When we break through to the top, we can shovel the snow to the right
and left till we open a passageway to the wood pile."
"It's going to be mighty hard work," said Ed, "for the snow is so soft
that we'll sink up to our waists in it."
"Yes," answered Harry, "but light snow like that will be easier to
handle than if it had settled and frozen."
With that the boys set to work to break a passage from the door to the
top of the snowdrift. When they had accomplished that they found, to
their sorrow, that it was still snowing heavily, a fact which threatened
to undo much of their work after it was done. Still the snow was dry and
light, and standing up to their waists in it, they shovelled it to right
and left, making a passageway through it that led towards their nearest
wood supply. They did not pause for a midday meal, and yet when night
came they had not reached the wood pile, while the snow continued to
fall as heavily as ever. Fortunately the high wind had gone down, so
that no more great drifts were blown into their trench.
They had not tried to dig to the ground in making their passageway. They
had simply created an upward incline from the door of their house to the
top of the drift, and then dug a sort of inclined trench towards the
wood pile.
"Now I say, fellows," said Jack, as they left off work to get such
supper as they could, "we've got to keep this thing up all night. We
have barely wood enough left to get supper and breakfast with, and we
simply _must_ get to that wood pile by morning. Of course we can't all
work all night; we must have some sleep; so I propose that we divide the
company into three shifts of two boys each, one shift to keep up the
work of shovelling while the others sleep. We'll let each shift work for
an hour and then wake up the next shift to take its place. That will let
every fellow have two hours' sleep between his one hour spells of work."
The plan seemed in all respects the best that could be devised. Three
sticks of wood were all that now remained in the cabin and it was
decided not to burn any of these during the night, but to save them for
use in cooking breakfast in the morning. Breakfast, it was agreed,
should consist of a kettle of corn meal mush, with two slices of salt
pork and a pint of coffee to each member of the party. The boys would
have foregone the pork, saving it for a worse emergency, but the Doctor
advised against that course.
"With so much work to do," he said, "we shall need the strength that
comes from meat."
"And besides," said Tom, "this snow will pack down pretty soon and
freeze over with a crust hard enough to bear a man. As soon as that
happens I am going out to get some game."
The night's work was awkwardly pursued, owing to the darkness, which was
rendered intense by the continued and very heavy snow fall. But while
they had not reached the wood pile by daylight, they were nearing it and
in fact believed themselves to be almost over it--for they had made
their trench a shallow one, in order to hasten their advance. So, when
the working shift was called to breakfast, Harry reported:
"We're almost over the wood pile. After breakfast, when we all get to
work, we'll soon make a sloping path down to it. As it is still snowing,
without a sign of quitting, I move that when we reach the wood, we all
set to work to bring a houseful of it in here, against emergencies."
"That's our best plan," said the Doctor. "If we are destined to live on
starvation rations and it should turn very cold, as is likely, we must
have artificial heat to replace that which a full supply of food would
make. A starving man practically freezes to death. So the first thing is
to bring into our cabin as large a supply of wood as it will hold.
Luckily we have plenty of it. There are twenty cords at least in that
first pile."
With that the boys set to work on their scant breakfast of coffee, mush
and salt pork.