CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

THE EXPECTED BLIZZARD

The threatening blizzard broke over the Sierra Nevadas about sundown, and for three days it raged. Ken seemed to be hilariously excited, and Dixie, Carol, and Sylvia wondered about it. The snow, which had commenced falling the first night, did not cease, and had it not been that the lad worked untiringly with a shovel, the animals and hens would have been without food.

At last Dixie suggested that the lean-to shed, which was back of the kitchen, should be occupied by the three hens, the small pig, and the goat.

“Topsy and the two kittens can come in with us. I always make her a bed back of the stove when the winter storms come,” the little mother explained to Sylvia.

“But what shall you do with Pegasus?” that small maiden asked.

That was indeed a problem. “We didn’t have our burro last winter,” Dix said. Then she added, “What _shall_ we do with him, Ken? When the snow piles up half-way to the top of the house, you can’t keep a path shoveled out to the barn. We’ll just have to bring Pegasus in somewhere.”

The lad rubbed his ear, which was stinging with the cold, for he had but recently come in from the storm. “I dunno,” he finally conceded, “unless we put him in the lean-to shed and tie him up in one corner. Then we can sort of fence off the three other corners and put the goat in one and the hens in the other, and Blessing in the last.”

How Sylvia laughed. “I never had so much fun before in all my life,” she confessed. Monday came and although the storm was not raging quite as furiously as it had been, still the four children could not attempt to go to school, nor did Miss Bayley expect them. Ken was very restless, and kept listening, as though he expected to hear some sound besides the moaning and whistling of the wind. Too, he would stand for fifteen minutes at a time straining his eyes through the dusk, watching, watching up the trail.

“Ken Martin, you act so queer!” Carol said at last. “Whatever are you looking out of the window for? You’ve seen the ground covered with snow lots of times before, haven’t you? Come on over here and help us tease Dixie to let us make some popcorn balls.”

The boy turned reluctantly back into the room, and, at the suggestion of his older sister, he brought forth a few ears of corn, which the laughing “twins,” as they now called Sylvia and Carol, began to shell. Then he procured the old-fashioned, long-handled popper, and five minutes later he was shaking this over a bed of red coals in the stove. The little town girl, who had never seen corn popped, stood with an arm about her best friend, watching with great interest. The kernels were bursting merrily into downy white puffs when Ken suddenly stopped shaking and listened intently. There was a prolonged dismal whistle of the wind down the chimney. That was all the girls heard, but Ken was sure that he had heard something else. “Here, Dix,” he said, as he held the handle of the popper toward her, “you take this. I want to go outside and listen.” The oldest girl complied, and the lad, putting on his heavy cap and coat, and lighting his lantern, opened the door. A gust of cold wind and sleet swept into the kitchen. Carol and Sylvia sprang to push the door shut, and, as they did so, the wide flame in the kerosene lamp flickered as though it would go out, but a moment later it steadied and shone on the puzzled faces of the three little girls.

“Dix,” Carol said, “brother’s been acting awfully queer of late, don’t you think so? He seems to be expecting somebody, and yet who in the world could it be? There’s nobody coming to visit us, is there?”

The older sister smiled. Ken had thought best to take her into his confidence, since he had offered the loft to his friend. She had assured him that he had done the right thing, but she did hope that Ken’s friend would not come until Sylvia had returned to Genoa. The little housekeeper didn’t know how they would all find places to sleep, but she remembered that Grandmother Piggins had often said, “Don’t step over a stile till you come to it.”

The corn had been popped till it filled a big yellow bowl, but Ken had not returned. Dixie carried the lamp to the window nearest the cañon trail. She was sure that she saw the lantern far off among the pine trees, but, as she watched, it disappeared. Then a sudden blast of wind roaring past the cabin told her that the storm was again increasing in fury. Why didn’t Ken come in, she wondered. Perhaps an uprooted tree had pinned him under. Perhaps she ought to go and find him.

When she arrived at this decision, she placed the lamp on the table by the window and went quietly to the loft to get her heavy coat and hood.

When Dixie ran out of the log cabin into the storm which was increasing in fury, she was at first so blinded by the stinging snow that she could see nothing. Then, when she had pulled her hood down in a way that sheltered her eyes, and had gathered the folds of her cloak tightly about her, she stood on the narrow path which Ken had shoveled a few hours before, and gazed through the dense blackness up toward the cañon road.

Again she saw a glimmer of light, as though it might be a lantern. Was Ken swinging it, hoping to attract her attention?

Believing that she had guessed aright, the small girl began battling the elements, and slowly she ascended the trail that led to the road. Now and then she stumbled over covered rocks, and at last reached the deep, unbroken snow, for Ken had not tried to shovel a path up the steep trail to the highway, and his own foot-prints had been hidden quickly by the storm.

Luckily the dim light of the lantern appeared again, and the girl headed directly for it. During a lull, she was sure she heard her brother call. After all, she feared that her surmise, that a falling tree had pinned him down, was correct, otherwise he surely would have returned to the cabin. It was at least half an hour since he had started out in search of he knew not what.

She stood still once more and listened. Again she heard the sound, and this time she knew it was her brother hallooing.

“Ken! Ken!” she shouted. “I’m coming! I’m ’most there!”

Then, as she paused to listen, she was sure that she heard an answering cry, though it seemed faint and far. Breaking through a dense growth of dwarf pines, to her great joy she saw, in a circle of light from the lantern a short distance above her, the erect form of a boy, which proved to her that at least her brother was unhurt. But as she hastened forward, she saw him lean over something that looked like a log. The girl knew that it must be the figure of a man. “Oh, Ken,” she cried as soon as she was near enough to be heard, “who is it out in all this blizzard?”

“It’s Mr. Edrington. He ’twas that was hallooing when I first heard a call. He had to leave camp, for his shelter blew away, and he couldn’t make a fire, for the matches were all wet. He tried to find the easy trail down the mountain, but the snow had covered it. He missed the way and fell right over the cliff. He’s got grit all right, Mr. Edrington has! He sort of dragged himself here. When I came, though, he’d petered all out, but he told me that much before he—he—”

The girl had knelt on the snow, and was listening to the man’s heart. “It’s only a faint he’s in,” she said, looking up at the lad. “If we rub his face and hands with snow, perhaps it will help him to come to.”

“Dix, you’re a brick!” the boy exclaimed admiringly. Then hopefully they did as the girl had suggested, watching anxiously the pale face upon which the light of the lantern shone. The wind had subsided, as it did periodically, and there was a strange silence under the pine trees. Too, the moon appeared through a rift in the clouds, making a beautiful picture of the wide, glistening cañon, while near by, the pine branches bent low under the weight of gleaming snow.

__To the great relief of the boy and girl the young engineer slowly opened his eyes; then he looked about with a puzzled expression. Seeing Ken, he smiled. “I say, where am I, old man?” he asked. Turning, he saw Dixie, and he sat up as though startled.

“It’s only my sister, Mr. Edrington,” Ken explained. “She’s grown a lot since you saw her last.”

“Of course,” the young man laughed as he took the girl’s hand. “I must have been dreaming. I thought you were Marlita Arden. Oh, I remember now. I fell over the cliff, didn’t I? Wonder if any bones are broken. Give a lift, Ken, and I’ll soon find out.”

With the aid of the strong boy and girl, the stalwart young man stood on his feet, and was indeed pleased to find that he could walk without pain.

However, he quickly put his hand to his head.

“That’s where I hit when I landed, I guess,” he said, trying to speak lightly. He staggered as he walked, and was glad indeed when the cabin was reached and he found himself lying on Ken’s bed in the small room adjoining the kitchen.

Carol had put another stick on the fire and had filled the teakettle. Dixie praised her small sister for her thoughtfulness. How glad, glad, that little mother was when she realized that Carol was beginning to think of others.

As the older girl prepared a hot beverage for their unexpected guest, she was wondering where her brother would sleep. Surmising this, the lad told her he’d fold a quilt and sleep on the floor near the stove. “Ira and I slept on the hard ground for a week when we were off wood-cutting for his dad,” he concluded.

Dixie went to bed that night with a strange feeling—a premonition perhaps—that something unusual was about to happen. Nor was she wrong.