CHAPTER XIX

_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.