Tells of a Tremendous Storm and a Strange Shelter, etcetera.  
Proverbial philosophy teaches us that misfortunes seldom come singly. Newfoundland, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, does not seem to have been a place of refuge from the operation of that law.
 
On the morning of the day in which the explorers meant to commence the return journey, a storm of unwonted rigour burst upon them, and swept over the land with devastating violence—overturning trees, snapping off mighty limbs, uplifting the new-fallen snow in great masses, and hurling it in wild confusion into space, so that earth and sky seemed to commingle in a horrid chaos.
 
The first intimation the travellers had of the impending storm was the rending of a limb of the tree under which they reposed. The way in which Oliver Trench received the rude awakening might, in other circumstances, have raised a laugh, for he leaped up like a harlequin, with a glare of sudden amazement, and, plunging headlong away from the threatened danger, buried himself in the snow. From this he instantly emerged with an aspect similar to that of “Father Christmas,” minus the good-natured serenity of that liberal-hearted personage.
 
“Daddy!” he gasped, “are you there?”
 
The question was not uncalled for, the captain having made a plunge like that of his son, but unlike his son, having found it difficult to extricate himself quickly.
 
Paul and Hendrick had also sprung up, but the latter, remaining close to the stem of the tree, kept his eye watchfully on the branches.
 
“Come here—quick!” he cried—“the stem is our safeguard. Look out!”
 
As he spoke his voice was drowned in a crash which mingled with the shrieking blast, and a great branch fell to the ground. Fortunately the wind blew it sufficiently to one side to clear the camp. The air was so charged with snow particles that the captain and his son seemed to stagger out of a white mist as they returned to their comrades who were clinging to the weather-side of the tree.
 
“D’ye think it will go by the board?” asked the captain, as he observed Hendrick’s anxious gaze fixed on the swaying tree.
 
“It is a good stout stick,” replied his friend, “but the blast is powerful.”
 
The captain looked up at the thick stem with a doubtful expression, and then turned to Hendrick with a nautical shake of the head.
 
“I never saw a stick,” he said, “that would stand the like o’ that without fore an’ back stays, but it may be that shoregoin’ sticks are—”
 
He stopped abruptly, for a terrific crash almost stunned him, as the tree by which they stood went down, tearing its way through the adjacent branches in its fall, and causing the whole party to stagger.
 
“Keep still!” shouted Hendrick in a voice of stern command, as he glanced critically at the fallen tree.
 
“Yes,” he added, “it will do. Come here.”
 
He scrambled quickly among the crushed branches until he stood directly under the prostrate stem, which was supported by its roots and stouter branches. “Here,” said he, “we are safe.”
 
His comrades glanced upwards with uneasy expressions that showed they did not quite share his feelings of safety.
 
“Seems to me, Master Hendrick,” roared the captain, for the noise of the hurly-burly around was tremendous, “that it was safer where we were. What if the stem should sink further and flatten us?”
 
“As long as we stood to windward of it” replied Hendrick, “we were safe from the tree itself, though in danger from surrounding trees, but now, with this great trunk above us, other trees can do us no harm. As for the stem sinking lower, it can’t do that until this solid branch that supports it becomes rotten. Come now,” he added, “we will encamp here. Give me the axe, Oliver, and the three of you help to carry away the branches as I chop them off.”
 
In little more than an hour a circular space was cleared of snow and branches, and a hut was thus formed, with the great tree-stem for a ridge-pole, and innumerable branches, great and small, serving at once for walls and supports. Having rescued their newly made snow-shoes and brought them, with their other property, into this place of refuge, they sat or reclined on their deerskins to await the end of the storm. This event did not, however, seem to be near. Hour after hour they sat, scarcely able to converse because of the noise, and quite unable to kindle a fire. Towards evening, however, the wind veered round a little, and a hill close to their camp sheltered them from its direct force. At the same time, an eddy in the gale piled up the snow on the fallen tree till it almost buried them; converting their refuge into a sort of snow-hut, with a branchy framework inside. This change also permitted them to light a small fire and cook some venison, so that they made a sudden bound from a state of great discomfort and depression to one of considerable comfort and hilarity.
 
“A wonderful change,” observed Trench, looking round the now ruddy walls of their curious dwelling with great satisfaction. “About the quickest built house on record, I should think—and the strongest.”
 
“Yes, daddy, and built under the worst of circumstances too. What puzzles me is that such a tree should have given way at all.”
 
“Don’t you see, Olly,” said Paul, “that some of its roots are hollow, rotten at the core?”
 
“Ah! boy—same with men as trees,” remarked the captain, moralising. “Rotten at the core—sure to come down, sooner or later. Lay that to heart, Olly.”
 
“If ever I do come down, daddy, I hope it won’t be with so much noise. Why, it went off like a cannon.”
 
“A cannon!” echoed the captain. “More like as if the main-mast o’ the world had gone by the board!”
 
“What if the gale should last a week?” asked Olly.
 
“Then we shall have to stay here a week,” returned Hendrick; “but there’s no fear of that. The fiercer the gale the sooner the calm. It won’t delay us long.”
 
The hunter was right. The day following found the party en route, with a clear sky, bright sun, and sharp calm air. But the art of snow-shoe walking, though easy enough, is not learned in an hour.
 
“They’re clumsy things to look at—more like small boats flattened than anything else,” remarked the captain, when Hendrick had fastened the strange but indispensable instruments on his feet—as he had already fastened those of the other two.
 
“Now look at me,” said Hendrick. “I’ll take a turn round of a few hundred yards to show you how. The chief thing you have to guard against is treading with one shoe on the edge of the other, at the same time you must not straddle. Just pass the inner edge of one shoe over the inner edge of the other, and walk very m............