THROUGH THE ICE
Warming, comforting beams of light shone from a large, low building set
back from the road in a little clearing of the woods. It was too dark to
see more than this--that the structure offered shelter, warmth and
light. Yes, and something else, for there was borne on the wings of the
wind the most delicious odor--the odor of supper.
"Pile out, folks! Pile out!" cried the genial old hunter. "Here we are!
At Elk Lodge! No more storm! No more cold! Get inside to the blaze. I
reckon mother's about given us up; but we're here, and we won't do a
thing to her cooking! Pile out!"
It was an invitation that needed no repetition. It was greeted with a
merry shout, even Mr. Sneed, the grouch, condescending to say:
"Ah, that sounds good!"
"Ha! Den if dere iss food to eat I dinks me dot I don't need to eat my
pretzels. I can safe dem for annoder time!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he
got out.
There was a laugh at this, and it was added to when Mr. Bunn called out
in his deepest tragic voice:
"Ha! Someone has my silk hat!"
For he had persisted in wearing that in the storm, though it was most
uncomfortable.
"It is gone!" he added. "Stolen, mayhap. Has anyone seen it?"
"Probably blew off," said Russ. "We'll find it--when the snow melts!"
Wellington Bunn groaned--again tragically.
"I'll get you another," offered Mr. Pertell, generously.
"Come on, folks! Pile out!" cried Mr. Macksey again.
"I'm so stiff I can hardly move!" declared Ruth.
"So am I," added Alice. "Oh, but it's good to be here!"
"I thought you liked the storm so," observed Ruth.
"I do, but I like supper too, and I think it must be ready."
Out of the sleds climbed the cold and cramped picture players, all
thought of the fierce storm now forgotten.
"Go right in," invited Mr. Macksey. "Supper's waiting!"
"Welcome to Elk Lodge!" called a motherly voice, and Mrs. Macksey
appeared in the open door of the main corridor. "Come right in!"
They were glad enough to do it.
"I don't know any of you, except Russ and Mr. Pertell," she said, for
the manager and his helper had paid a visit to the place sometime before
to make arrangements about using it.
"You'll soon know all of 'em," declared Mr. Pertell with a laugh. "I'll
introduce you," which he quickly did.
"Now then, I expect you'll want to wash up," went on the hunter's wife.
"I'll have the girl show you to your different rooms, and then you can
come down to supper. It's been waiting. What kept you? I'll have to ask
you folks because it's like pulling teeth to get any news out of my
husband. What happened?"
"A breakdown," explained Ruth, who took an instant liking to motherly
Mrs. Macksey. "Oh, we had such a time!"
"Such a glorious time!" supplemented Alice.
"Here's a girl who evidently likes outdoors," laughed the hunter's wife.
"Indeed I do!" cried Alice.
There was some little confusion, getting the players to their rooms,
because of the lateness of the arrival, but finally each one was in his
or her appointed apartment, and trying to get settled. The rooms were
small but comfortable, and the hunters who had built the lodge for
themselves had provided many comforts.
"There ought to be a private bath for each one," declared Miss
Pennington, as she surveyed her room.
"Indeed there ought," agreed her friend Miss Dixon. "I think this place
is horrid!"
"How thoughtless and selfish they are," said Ruth, who shared a room
with Alice.
"Aren't they! I think it's lovely here. Oh, but I am so hungry!"
"So am I, dear."
"Glad to hear it for once, Ruth. Usually you have so little appetite
that one would think you were in love."
"Silly! I'm going to eat to-night anyhow."
"Does that mean you are _not_ in love?"
"Silly!" cried Ruth again, but that was all she answered.
What a glorious and home-like place Elk Lodge was! Yes, even better than
the best home the moving picture girls had known most of their lives,
for they had spent part of the time boarding, as their father traveled
about with his theatrical company, and who can compare a home to a
boarding house?
Down in the big living room a fire burned and crackled, and gave out
spicy odors on the great hearth that took in logs six feet long. And how
cheerfully and ruddily the blaze shone out! It mellowed and cheered
everyone. Even Mr. Sneed smiled, and stretched out his hands to the
leaping flames.
As Ruth and Alice were about to go down, having called to their father
across the hall that they were ready for him, there came a knock on
their door.
"Come in!" invited Ruth.
"Sorry to trouble you," spoke Miss Pennington, "but have you any cold
cream and--er--powder? Our things were left in the other sled--I mean
all of those things, and Laura and I can't--we simply can't get along
without them."
"I have cold cream," said Alice. "But powder--that is unless it's talcum
or rice----"
"That will have to do I guess," sighed the vaudeville actress. "But I
did hope you had a bit of rouge, I'm so pale!"
"Never use it!" said Alice quickly. Too quickly, hospitable Ruth
thought, for, though she decried the use of "paint," she would not be
rude to a guest, and, under these circumstances Miss Pennington was a
guest.
"You don't need it," the caller said, with a glance at Alice's glowing
cheeks, to whom the wind and snow had presented two damask spots that
were most becoming.
"The weather is very chapping to my face," the former vaudeville actress
went on. "I really must have something," and she departed with the cold
cream and some harmless rice powder, which Ruth and Alice used
judiciously and sparingly, and only when needed.
The fine supper, late as it was, necessarily, was enjoyed to the utmost.
It was bountiful and good, and though at first Miss Pennington and Miss
Dixon were inclined to sniff at the lack of "courses," and the absence
of lobster, it was noticed that they ate heartily.
"There is only one thing more I want," sighed Paul, as he leaned back in
his chair.
"What, pray? It seems to me, and I have been watching you, that you have
had about all that is good for you," laughed Alice. "I have seen you get
three separate and distinct helpings of fried chicken."
"Oh, I didn't mean anything more to eat," he said, quickly, "and if you
are going to watch me so closely I shall have to cut down my rations, I
fear. What I meant was that I would like a moving picture of this
supper. It has memories that long will linger, but I fain would have a
souvenir of it."
"Be careful that you don't get indigestion as a souvenir," laughed
Alice, as he followed her sister from the table.
The dining room opened off the great living apartment with that
wonderful fire, and following the meal all the members of the company
gathered about the hearth.
Outside the storm still raged, and Mr. Macksey, who came in from having
with his men, put away the horses, reported that the blizzard was
growing worse.
"It's a good thing we thought of changing the bobs and coming on," he
said. "Otherwise we might be there yet."
"What really happened?" asked his wife. "I was telling one of the young
ladies that it was like pulling teeth to get any news out of you."
"Oh, we just had a little breakdown," he said. "Now, folks, just make
yourselves at home. Go to bed when you like, get up when you please.
I'll try and get the rest of your baggage here some time to-morrow, if
this storm lets up."
"I hope you do get it," complained Miss Pennington.
"Selfish thing!" whispered Alice. "All she wants is her paint!"
"Hush," cautioned Ruth. "She'll hear you!"
"I don't care," voiced her sister.
They talked of many things as they sat about the fire, and then Mr.
Pertell said:
"We will film no dramas while the storm continues, but as soon as we can
get out on the ice I want to start one."
"Is there skating about here?" asked Alice, who was very fond of the
sport.
"There's a fine lake back of the lodge," replied Mr. Macksey, "and as
soon as the storm lets up I'll have the men clear a place of snow, and
you can have all the fun you want."
"Oh, joy!" cried Alice.
"Save me the first skate," whispered Paul to her, and she nodded
acquiescence.
Mr. Pertell briefly outlined the drama he expected to film on the ice,
and then, after a little more talk, every one voted that bed was the
best place in the world. For the wind had made them all sleepy, and they
were tired out from the storm and their long journey.
Alice and Ruth went up to their room. Alice pulled aside the curtain
from the window and looked out on a scene of swirling whiteness. The
flakes dashed against the pane as though knocking for admission.
"It's a terrible night," said Ruth, with a little shiver.
"Well, much as I like weather, I wouldn't want to be out in it long,"
Alice confessed. "Elk Lodge is a very good place in a blizzard."
"Suppose we got snowed in?" asked Ruth, apprehensively.
"Then we'll dig our way out--simple answer. Oh dear!" and Alice yawned
luxuriously, if not politely, showing her pretty teeth.
In spite of the portentous nature of the storm, it was not fully borne
out, and morning saw the sun shining on the piles of snow that had
fallen. There had been a considerable quantity sifted down on what was
already about Elk Lodge, but there was not enough to hinder traffic for
the sturdy lumbermen and hunters of that region.
The wind had died down, and it was not cold, so when Mr. Macksey
announced that he was going back after the broken-down sleigh, Ruth and
Alice asked permission to accompany him.
Before starting off Mr. Macksey had set a gang of men, hired for the
occasion, to scraping the snow off the frozen lake, and when Ruth and
Alice came back they found several of the picture players skating,
while Russ was getting ready to film one of the first scenes of the
drama.
"You're in this, Mr. Sneed," said the manager. "You are supposed to be
skating along, when you trip and fall breaking your leg----"
"Hold on--stop--break my leg! Never!" cried the grouchy actor.
"Of course you don't really injure yourself!" exclaimed the manager,
testily.
"Oh, why did I ever come to this miserable place!" sighed Mr. Sneed. "I
despise cold weather!"
But there was no help for it. Soon he was on the steel runners gliding
about, while Russ filmed him. Mr. Sneed was a good skater, and was not
averse to "showing off."
"All ready, now!" called the manager to him. "Get that fall in right
there. Russ, be ready for him!"
"Oh!" groaned the actor. "Here I go!"
And, as luck would have it, he, at that moment, tripped on a stick, and
fell in earnest. It was much better done than if he had simulated it.
But something else happened. He fell so heavily, and at a spot where
there was a treacherous air hole, that, the next instant Mr. Sneed broke
through the ice, and was floundering in the chilly water.