SIX BOYS AND ANOTHER IN COLD STORAGE
When the chatter had ceased and the fellows were all dropping off to
sleep, the interior of the tight old log cabin was still aglow from the
light of the fire. That light was so bright that, one after another, the
boys turned over, their faces to the wall.
And then no sound was heard, save the weird howling of the wind outside,
with an occasional sputter as a stray gust of snow swept down the broad
chimney to the roaring fire. Every Grammar School boy, as he dropped off
to sleep, knew that a big blizzard was still in progress.
"I wonder if I'll sleep a wink, for thinking of Mr. Fits, and what he may
try to do to us in the night," thought Dan Dalzell, while his lids fell
heavily. "If I do sleep, it will be to wake every little while with a
start. Well, so much the better. If I wake often I'm likely to hear the
scoundrel if he starts anything around here--when he--thinks--we're--so
drowsy that we're dead to the world--and--_gullup_!"
That last exclamation was a snore. Dan was conscious of waking once,
though at what time he did not know. He noted that the fire seemed to
have burned very low, and that it was almost wholly dark within the
cabin. Then he dozed. When he awoke once more he could see no glow
whatever from the fire. The lantern that had been left lighted had
flickered out. Dan felt oppressed by a sense of something awesome.
"What on earth can the time be?" Dan wondered, now quite wide awake and
just slightly uneasy. As he peered about through the dark he made out
what looked very much like a narrow ray of daylight through a crack in
one of the closed shutters.
"It can't be morning," muttered Dan. "And yet--why is the fire out? We
left a bully one going."
Dan had thrown his jacket on to the bunk before retiring. Now, he sat
up, reaching for the jacket.
"Gracious but it's cold!" gasped Dan, as the chill struck him.
"Shut up!" growled Dave Darrin's drowsy voice. "Don't wake everybody."
"What's the matter?" chimed in Dick Prescott sleepily.
"It's--it's cold," chattered Dan, as he sank back under the blankets.
Here he quickly warmed. And he had gotten what he had looked for, a
battered old dollar watch and a box of matches.
"Keep under the clothes and you'll be all right," returned Dick
soothingly. "But, my! With that fire out some of the fellows are going
to have a cold time getting up and building one in the morning."
Dan's teeth chattered for a minute or two. Then he sat up once more,
striking a match and holding up his watch. Dalzell stared incredulously
at the hands and the dial before he tossed the extinguished match to the
floor and sank back once more under the blankets.
"S-s-say, do you fellows know what time it is?" shivered Dan.
"What time?" called Dick and Dave softly.
"It's half past nine."
"Nonsense," ridiculed Dave. "It was after ten when we went to bed."
"It's after half past nine--in the morning," retorted Dan impressively.
"Glory, but I believe you're right," ejaculated Prescott. "I can see
just a tiny crack of daylight over by one of the shutters."
"It's morning, all right," Dan insisted. "And the fire's out. Wake up,
fellows! Who's going to start a new fire?"
"I will," volunteered Tom Reade. "Great Scott! No; I won't, either," he
ejaculated, after having thrust his legs out of his bunk preparatory to
jumping up. "Oh, don't I wish we could carry a million freight carloads
of this cold air back with us! We could make our fortunes selling it to
a cold storage company."
"I guess we'll have to call for two volunteers," laughed Dick, after
having thrust a foot out. "I'll volunteer, for one. Who'll be the
other?"
"Hen Dutcher!" came with wonderful unanimity from the others.
"Not on your life I won't!" retorted Hen with vigor. "I won't freeze
myself for any gang of fellows, and that's flat. I'm going to dress by a
warm fire when I dress."
"Well," said Dan ruefully, "as I woke all the others up, I guess it's up
to me to volunteer. Say when you're ready, Dick."
"Now!" answered Prescott.
"Please don't be so sudden," pleaded Dan. "Give a fellow just a bit of
warning. Count three; no, make it ten."
So Dick counted. At ten both he and Dan leaped from their bunks. They
were sorry, the instant their feet struck the floor, which seemed at
least twenty degrees colder than ice. Both shook and shivered as they
pulled on their underclothes, shoes which they did not stop to lace,
then shirts, trousers, vests and jackets.
"Br-r-r-r-r! M-m-m-m--!" was all the sound Dan could make. He was trying
to frame words, but his teeth wouldn't stop long enough. Dick made a
dive for a lot of excelsior that had come around some of their goods the
day before. This he threw into the dead, cold fireplace. Dan, shaking as
though with ague, brought a log and laid it across the excelsior. Dick
brought some more firewood. In a short time they had it well heaped.
Then Dick poured coal oil over the whole, and Dan, with palsied fingers,
made three attempts before he could open his match box and strike a
match. The temperature in the cabin must have been around zero, for it
was twenty below outside that same morning.
At last the lighted match reached the oil soaked excelsior, but before
it could ignite, the cold wind that was roaring down the chimney blew it
out.
Dick was too cold to talk, but he made a dive for his cap, and held it
in place over some of the excelsior, while shaking Dan miserably felt
for another match. This time the tiny flame caught in the excelsior.
"It's a g-g-g-g-go!" chattered Dick.
"M-m-m-me for b-b-b-b-bed!" chattered Dan, racing back to his bunk in
the starting light of the fire and diving in under the blankets.
But Dick Prescott stuck at his post. He saw the excelsior blaze briskly.
Then the flames licked at the oil over the logs. Thirty seconds after
that, and the cabin interior was fairly well lighted by the increasing
blaze. Dick wouldn't go back to his bunk, but stood with his back as
close as he dared to the fire. Yet the cold air was all around him, and,
while his back baked the rest of his body was so cold that his teeth
continued to play against each other in six eight time.
"Why don't you get back into bed?" called Tom Reade lazily from his
warmth under blankets. But Dick stuck it out. When the first logs were a
seething mass of ruddy fire Dick, now chattering less, brought more
short logs and piled them on in place. The wind, that day, would take
all the wood that was fed to the fire. Gradually Dick stopped
chattering. At last he even felt comfortable.
"You fellows can get up now just as well as not," he announced.
Dan was the first to try it.
"Something like," he announced. That brought Dave Darrin out. One by one
the other fellows followed--all except Hen.
"You don't catch me out of my bunk until breakfast is ready," announced
young Dutcher.
Dick wheeled impatiently, at this hint, but Dave Darrin whispered in his
ear:
"Let it go at that, Dick. But after breakfast we'll make him wash all
the dishes--every one--and spend the rest of the forenoon slicking up
around the place. If he refuses--well, we'll know how to bring him to
time."
So Hen was ignored for the time being. Dan and Greg busied themselves in
the first breakfast preparations. Dick and Dave, presently, went over to
one of the windows, forcing it back and tugging at the shutter, which
proved to be frozen in place.
"Bring some hot water, Dan, the minute you get it," urged Dick. This was
soon ready and a small amount of it was poured around the sill,
loosening the shutter, which was shoved back.
"Glory! Look at the storm!" cried Dick. There was a rush after the glass
window had been closed.
Never had a prettier snow scene been exposed to view. The snow was still
swirling down, while what had fallen was up level with the window.
"It's a good four feet deep, already!" cried Dave.
"And looks as though it would go on snowing for a week," added Tom Reade
joyously.
"Fellows," announced Dick, "we're surely snowbound. That's something
that we've often dreamed about. Say, wouldn't it be queer if we had a
long spell of this sort of thing, and couldn't--simply couldn't--get
back to Central Grammar by the time school opens again after the
holidays?"
"If the food holds out it'll be fun," assented Tom Reade.
Soon another shutter was opened, admitting more daylight. When they got
around to the rear window, and got it open, Dick pointed to the shack in
the rear.
"Well, we know that Mr. Fits hasn't been out to-day," Prescott laughed.
"Just look at his door. The drifts have piled against it, higher than
the door itself."
Snow scenes, however, do not feed any one. So the boys turned back to
the kitchen preparations. What if the bacon and eggs didn't look quite
neat enough to suit a real housekeeper? The mess tasted good. So did the
fried potatoes, made out of the left overs from last night's boiled
ones. Coffee, bread and butter and "store pie." No wonder the
youngsters, when they were through with breakfast, and in a cabin now
warm from one end to the other, felt, as Dick expressed it:
"Say, we're at peace with the whole world, aren't we?" he asked.
"Yes," agreed Dan solemnly. "Mr. Fits is snowed in tight."
"We're even at peace with Hen Dutcher, the miserable shirk," rumbled Tom
Reade.
"That reminds me," said Dick, turning. "Hen, it's up to you to wash all
the dishes, and to do it tidily, too."
"I won't," retorted Hen defiantly. "I'm no servant to you fellows."
"Hen," observed Dick, with a light in his eyes that meant business,
"it's past the time now for you to tell us what you'll do and what you
won't do. We didn't invite you here, and you didn't pay any share of the
expenses that we have been under. Accident made you our guest; we didn't
really want you here at all. The same accident that makes it necessary
for you to stay here for the present has kept away the rest of your
crowd--Fred Ripley and his pals. While you stay here you'll do your full
share of the work. If you don't, you'll soon wish you had. Now, your
first job is to wash and dry the dishes. After that you'll tidy up the
cabin. I'll show you what's needed in that line. Get to work!"
Hen had grown meeker during this address, for he saw that the other
fellows approved all that their leader was saying.
"All right," he muttered; "I'll do it, but it ain't a square deal. I'm
your guest and I ought not to work."