Hugh had thought, when he saw those first snowflakes, that he understood a little of what was before them. He had later to learn that winter as he knew it and winter as it could be in northern Minnesota were two very different matters. To lose all their possessions at just the season when cold weather was closing in was a mishap desperate indeed, yet the boys, after a moment of being stunned by the gravity of the situation, faced it gayly.
That same night Hugh insisted on going out to look for the fishing basket that he had thrown aside when he ran to the rescue of Hulda. With Nicholas to help him, he managed to find it, so, that evening at least, they did not have to go supperless to bed. Early next morning they arose to search the ruins of the storehouse for anything that might have escaped destruction. Part of a side of bacon was found wedged under a fallen beam and a very small quantity of flour, happening to be in a tin container, had not been consumed. That was the whole extent of their salvage.
The snow had only been falling fitfully during the night, but about the middle of the morning the storm settled down, like a blinding white curtain that shut off all the rest of the world. Once or twice the rising wind tore the dense veil apart, showing them the stormy lake, the bowing woods and Jasper Peak for a fleeting moment, before all was blotted out again. The boys had managed to mend the hole burned in the roof and to shut off the door that had once led into the storehouse, and now were warming themselves at the fire after their severe labors outside. Dick went to the window and took a long survey of the snow.
“If I know anything of Minnesota weather,” he remarked, “this is the sort of storm that will last for days, three or four, at least, and then it will clear and get cold, colder than anything you ever dreamed of—thirty—forty—fifty below zero, maybe. If we should start now, we might be able to get to Rudolm, but if we wait until the snow is deep we could not even attempt it. What do you say, Hugh, shall we go or stay?”
“I don’t know,” answered Hugh from beside the fire; “do you want to go?”
“I do not,” returned Dick promptly, “but we have got to decide which is the wiser thing to do.”
Hugh looked up at the calendar on the wall.
“Oscar has been gone two weeks and three days,” he said, “so his time for proving up on the claim will be over in five days. Jake arranged his plan well. He meant to burn the cabin and just give himself time to get down to the Land Office to make trouble over Oscar’s statement that the land is improved and so tie the whole thing up. He knows we have lost our stores; he is watching from over there to see if we go. He will still have time to put the thing through if we do.”
“Then let’s stay,” decided Dick with determination. “We have food enough for two days and we’ll whistle for luck for the other three. Fortunately we have plenty of wood.”
“And let’s make a big smoke in the chimney,” said Hugh, “so that when the storm lifts for a second Jake can see that we are still here and are going to stay.”
It was a welcome idea and quickly carried out. Certainly if Half-Breed Jake had any curiosity as to whether the cottage was still inhabited, he had no need to cross the valley to find out, on that day at least. Dick and Hugh built up such a roaring blaze that there was danger of their setting fire to the cabin again; then they sat down before it, toasting their shins and reflecting on the probable disappointment of the Pirate of Jasper Peak.
The hours passed very slowly, for the two had little to do and had chosen to have no midday meal, but to eat of their scanty stock only night and morning. The storm increased; the snowfall was no longer steady, but came in whirling gusts, piling high before the cabin door. About the middle of the afternoon, Dick took his rifle and sallied forth with Nicholas in desperate hope of bringing home some game. He was gone two hours, returning at last empty-handed.
“And very lucky I was to get home at all,” he said as he came in, stamping the snow off his big boots. “I vow I have been walking in a circle for five miles: it was only Nicholas who ever got me here again.”
All night the wind screamed in the chimney and fairly rocked the walls of their little dwelling. The snow seemed twice as deep when they fought their way out to the stable to attend to the wants of Hulda. Her placid air was somewhat reassuring, although Hugh observed wisely:
“She really doesn’t know just how things are.”
The pail of milk that they carried back between them was even more comforting, for it was plain that with Hulda’s help they could not quite starve.
“We can get pretty hungry, though,” observed Hugh grimly as he saw Nicholas disposing of his share in three laps and then looking up to beg mutely for more.
There could be no thought now of going out to shoot. The snow was drifted over the window sills and banked against the door and still filled the air in white clouds driven by the roaring wind. The spring, their one water supply, was as inaccessible as though it had been ten miles away, so they melted snow in a pot over the fire and found it a most unsatisfactory process, since, as Dick said, “A bucketful of snow makes about a thimbleful of water.”
Their supply of food was quite gone by the fourth day, in spite of all their care, so there was nothing left but the milk night and morning.
“That won’t keep one very long,” Hugh remarked.
He had been obliged to gulp down his share in the stable, being much too hungry to wait until he got back to the house. Dick immediately followed his example and, when he had finished, stood eying the storm through the narrow slit of a window.
“It can’t last a great deal longer, it simply can’t,” he asserted.
Hugh, shaking down hay for Hulda, envied her the pleasure with which she ate it and answered gloomily:
“Perhaps it can’t, but I am beginning to think that it will.”
This day also wore by somehow and at last night came.
“There certainly will be a change by morning,” Hugh assured himself as he fell asleep.
When he awoke, however, and got up at once to press his face against the snow-blurred window he saw just the same blinding, swirling storm. It looked like some sort of dream that would go on and on and never end. Dick, awaking, sat up quickly, but, on looking at Hugh’s face, forebore to ask any questions.
“You had better lie down again,” he advised, dropping his head once more upon the pillow. “It is wiser to spend as much time sleeping as you possibly can.”
Stumbling out through the drifts to Hulda, Hugh began suddenly to realize such weakness that he wondered whether he could make the journey again without dropping in the snow. Through the day he noticed that Dick no longer prowled from door to window, looking at the storm. He sat, instead, immovable in the big chair by the fire, only stirring now and then to add fresh logs to the blaze. The strain of his journey through the wood, his anxiety about his brother, with these present hardships, had tended to break him sooner than Hugh. He tried to speak some words of broken apology when Hugh went about the work of the cabin alone, but the truth was plain enough, that he could scarcely move. Nicholas lay listlessly in a corner, following Hugh always with great hungry eyes. Night seemed to come with unbelievable slowness, even though the winter days had grown so short.
They crawled into bed at last, too weak and dispirited, almost, to bid each other good-night. Hugh tossed and turned upon his bunk; he was too hungry to sleep. Suddenly sitting bolt upright, he addressed Dick, who was awake also, even though he lay so still.
“Dick,” he said sharply, “are you sorry we stayed?”
“No,” came the answer promptly. “No, by George, I’m not sorry, no matter what happens.”
“Nor I,” said Hugh, and lay down again, quieted somehow, so that soon he went to sleep.
He awoke, hours later, with a vague knowledge that something was wrong. After rubbing the drowsiness from his eyes and thinking a little, he decided that, even under his mountain of blankets, he was very cold. He got up hastily, huddled on all of his clothes, even to his mackinaw coat, and went into the other room to crouch before the hearth. The fire was not yet dead, but such warmth as it could give made little impression upon the terrible benumbing chill that filled the cottage. Nicholas, shivering and whining, came to his side and the two crept close together, each getting a little comfort from the other. Dick was still asleep; they could hear his breathing in the utter quiet, and the clock tick-ticking above them on the wall. In the flickering light Hugh could see the hands moving slowly until they pointed to twelve.
It was midnight, the last hour of Oscar’s last day. The cabin was safe, the claim was his, the first step of his great plan was made certain at last.
“We’ve beaten Jake,” cried Hugh, in a quick whisper and threw his arms about Nicholas in a great hug of delight. Then he got up stiffly and went to the window to survey the weather. He pushed aside the curtain, rubbed a clear space in the thick frost on the pane and looked out. He gasped and looked once more, with a cry of amazement, as though some strange vision had been presented to his eyes. Yet all he saw was calm, quiet night, a world of glittering snowfields and a clear sky all alight with stars.
“Dick, Dick,” he shouted, and his comrade jumped up hastily.
“What is it?” he asked. “Oh, brr-rr, but it is cold.”
He came to Hugh’s side, looked out also and gave the same gasp of joy.
“I didn’t know,” he cried, his voice almost breaking, “I didn’t know that stars could shine so bright, Hugh!”
What happened next would have shocked Linda Ingmarsson, careful housekeeper that she was, and might even have given some pain to Oscar’s tidy Swedish soul. For both boys, fully dressed, got into one bunk together, with Nicholas between them, “just for company,” as Hugh said. The big dog accomplished wonders in the matter of doubling up his long legs, so that the combined supply of blankets sufficed to cover them all. Gradually, as they began to be a little warmer, both the boys relaxed a little from their long anxiety during the storm. The claim was safe, there was a chance that they could go into the wo............