SNOWBOUND
Alice and Ruth fairly flew together, holding their arms tightly about
one another in the excess of their emotion, as they heard this joyful
news shouted to them by their father.
Ruth cried on her sister's shoulder. She could not help it. Perhaps
Alice felt like crying, too, so great was the relief; but she was of a
different temperament. She laughed hysterically.
"Is Mr. Pertell there?" called Russ, getting down close to the hole he
and Paul had made in the ice barrier to enable his voice to carry
better. "Is he there, Mr. DeVere?"
"Yes, he's there, and I guess the whole company."
"Has he the camera?"
"That's what he has, Russ."
"Good! Tell him to get a moving picture of the rescue. We can fix up a
story to go with it."
"I will, Russ!" exclaimed the actor.
Then, as those within the ice cave waited, they faintly heard other
voices outside, and a little later the sound of axes vigorously applied
told that the ice which had imprisoned them was being chopped away.
Fast and furiously the rescuers worked. The ice flew about in a
sparkling spray as the keen weapons bit deep into it, and the hole grew
larger and larger.
Meanwhile Mr. Pertell was operating the moving picture camera, getting
view after view of the rescue. There were enough helpers so that his aid
was not needed in chopping the ice.
"There she goes!" cried Mr. Macksey, as his axe went through an opening
and into the cave. "I've made the hole!" and he capered about like a
boy, so delighted was he that he had been the first to bring aid to the
imprisoned ones.
"Oh, now we can get out!" cried Ruth, as she saw the head of the axe
come through.
"As if there had ever been any doubt of it," laughed Alice. She could
laugh now, but even with all her gay spirits, there had been a time, not
many minutes back, when it was quite a different story.
The hole once made, was soon enlarged, and then, when it was of
sufficient size to enable a person to crawl through, Russ shouted to
the rescuers;
"That'll do! Don't chop any more! We can wriggle out."
"Surely, yes," agreed Ruth, as the young moving picture operator looked
to her for confirmation. "I'm not a bit fussy," she added. "I've done
harder things than crawl on my hands and knees out of an ice cave."
"Don't chop any more!" called Paul, for Russ was leading Ruth to the
opening.
"Come ahead!" called Mr. DeVere, and a moment later he was holding his
daughter in his arms. Alice soon followed, and she too was clasped
tightly.
"Hurray!" cried Mr. Switzer, as Russ and Paul emerged from their strange
prison. "Dis is der best sight vot I have yet had in more as a month.
Half a pretzel!" he exclaimed, holding out one of the queer, twisted
things. He was never without them since the sled breakdown. He said they
were his mascots.
There was a scene of rejoicing, and even the gloomy Mr. Sneed
condescended to smile, and looked almost happy.
"There, I guess we can use this film in some sort of a play, if I have
to write it myself!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he finished grinding
away at the camera crank. "I can call it 'Caught in The Ice,' or
something like that," he went on, "We can make some preliminary scenes,
and some others to follow, and get quite a play out of it."
"I'm glad you thought to bring the camera," said Russ. Even in the
stress of what had happened to him and his companions, his instinct as a
moving picture operator was ever foremost.
"We had better get them to Elk Lodge, and feed them upon something
warm," suggested Mr. Macksey. "I told the wife to have a good meal
ready, for I knew they would be chilled through."
"It _was_ pretty cold in there," confessed Alice.
"Oh, don't let's talk about it!" cried Ruth. "It was too terrible."
An examination of the exterior of the ice cave showed that just what the
young men surmised had taken place. A large chunk of ice had slid down
from above, and had jammed against the opening to the cavern.
Back at Elk Lodge, with warm garments on, the four who had passed
through such a trying experience soon forgot their troubles. They had to
tell all over again just what had happened, and the young men were
considered quite the heroes of the hour.
The next day none of the four was any the worse for the experience, save
in the matter of a nightmare memory, and that would gradually pass away.
Feeling that the two girls were not capable of doing any hard work in
posing for the camera that day, Mr. Pertell announced another vacation,
save that Russ was engaged in making some scenes of snow and ice
effects.
Late in the afternoon, when the shadows were lengthening, and the long
winter evening was about to close in, Alice, who was out on the side
porch, saw Mr. Macksey coming in from the barn. The hunter had an
anxious look on his face, and as he walked toward the house he cast
looks up at the sky now and then. And Alice heard him murmur:
"I don't like this! I don't for a cent, by hickory!"
"What's the matter now?" she asked, merrily. "Have you seen some of
those strange men about again, hunting on your preserves?"
"No, Miss Alice. Not this time," he replied, slowly.
"What is it then?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't like the looks of the weather."
"Do you think we're going to have another blizzard?" and there was a
note of alarm in her voice.
"I'm thinking that's what's coming," he made answer. "I never knew the
weather to act just this way before except once, and then we had the
worst storm I ever remember. That was when I was a boy, and more snow
fell in that one storm than in any three winters put together."
"Gracious! I hope that won't happen now!" cried the girl.
"So do I," went on the hunter. "And I'm going to take all precautions.
I'll get the men, and we'll pile the fodder in the barn so if we can't
get out to feed the stock they won't starve for a week, anyhow."
"Does it ever happen that you can't get out to the barns?" Alice wanted
to know.
"Indeed it does, young lady. When there is a heavy fall of snow, and the
wind blows hard, it drifts almost as high as the house. Yes, I think
we're in for a storm, and I'm going to get ready for it. Best to be on
the safe side."
A little later he and a number of his hired men, as well as some of the
picture players, were engaged in looking after the horses and cows.
Great piles of hay and grain were moved from the barns where the fodder
was kept in reserve, to the buildings where the stock were stabled.
"How about our rations?" asked Mr. Bunn, who was not of much help in
work of this sort. "Have we enough to last through a storm?"
"Well, we've got some," Mr. Macksey admitted. "But I own I would like a
little better stock in the Lodge. I counted on some supplies coming in
to-day; but they haven't arrived. We'll have to do the best we can."
"What is all the excitement about, Alice?" asked Ruth as she came out to
join her sister on the porch.
"A big storm coming, Mr. Macksey says. They're getting ready for it. I
want to see it!"
"Oh, Alice. Suppose it should be a blizzard!"
"Well, I want to see it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it;
but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically
philosophical way.
There was a curious humming in the air, as though someone, a great way
off, were moaning in pain. It did not seem to be the wind, and yet it
was like the sigh of a breeze. But the gaunt-limbed trees did not bow
before this strange blast.
The air, too, had a bite and tingle to it as though it were filled with
invisible particles of ice. The clouds were lowering, and as the
afternoon wore away there sprang up in the west a black band of vapor,
almost like ink.
Alice induced Ruth to pay a visit to the barn, to watch the preparations
for providing for the stock. Even the animals seemed uneasy, as though
they sensed some impending disaster. The horses, always nervous, were
doubly so, and moved restlessly about, with pricked-up ears, and
startled neighs. The cows, too, lowed plaintively.
"Well, we've done all we can," announced Mr. Macksey, as night came on.
"Now all we can do is to wait. There's plenty of fuel in the cellar, and
we'll not freeze, at any rate."
There was a sense of gloom over all, as they sat in the big living room
of Elk Lodge that night, and looked at the blazing logs. Everyone
listened apprehensively, as though to hear the first message of the
impending storm.
The sighing of the wind, if wind it was that made that curious sound,
was more pronounced now, and as the blast came down the chimney it
scattered ashes and embers about, and at times rose to an uncanny wail.
"Oh, but that gives me the shivers!" exclaimed Miss Pennington, tossing
aside the novel in which she had tried to become interested. "This is
positively awful! I wish I were back in New York."
"So do I!" added her chum.
"Oh, but a good snow storm is glorious!" cried Alice. "I am just wild to
see it."
"That's right," exclaimed her father, with a smile. "Take a cheerful
view of it, anyhow."
Some one proposed a guessing game, and with that under way the spirits
of all revived somewhat. Then came another simple game, and the time
passed pleasantly.
Mr. Macksey, coming back from a trip to the side door, startled them all
by announcing:
"She's here!"
"Who?" asked his wife, looking up from her sewing.
"The storm! It's snowing like cotton batting!"
Alice rushed to the window. She shaded her eyes with her hands at the
side of her head and peered out. It seemed as though the lamplights
shone on a solid wall of white, so thickly was the snow falling.
The wind had now risen to a blast of hurricane-like velocity and it
fairly shook Elk Lodge, low and substantial as the house was.
By ones and twos the picture players went to their rooms, and soon
silence and darkness settled down over the Lodge. That is, silence
within the house, but outside there was the riot of the storm.
Two or three times during the night Alice awakened and, going to the
window, looked out. She could make out a dim whiteness, but that was
all. Around the window there was a little drift of snow on the sill,
where it had been blown through a crack.
And in the morning they were snowbound. So heavy was the fall of snow,
and so high had it drifted, that some of the lower windows were
completely covered, from the ground up. And before each door was such a
drift that it would be necessary to tunnel if they were to get out.
"The worst storm I ever see!" declared Mr. Macksey, as he closed the
door against the blast. "It would be death to go out in it now. We are
snowbound, by hickory!"