CHAPTER XX
_In Perilous Plight_
After breakfast the boys began again the snow digging for their woodpile. They had somewhat miscalculated its locality, and so when theyreached the ground with their descending path, the wood pile was notthere. Nor could they easily correct their reckoning until little Tomcame to the rescue with his keen eyes and his alert intelligence.Climbing to the top of the snowdrift and standing, hips deep in the softsnow, he studied the trees round about, or so much of them as protrudedabove the snow. It was Tom's excellent habit to observe things closely,even when there was no apparent occasion to observe them at all, and hehad observed that one of the trees between which the wood had beenranked up had a peculiar knot on it about thirty feet from the ground,caused by some injury received while yet it was young. So he looked forthat tree. The snow had so changed the aspect of the landscape that allits recognizable features had disappeared, but Tom remembered thatpeculiar knot and eagerly looked out for it. Presently he discovered it,in spite of the fact that a mass of snow that had collected on top of itseriously impaired its proportions. Instantly he called out directionsto the boys to carry their pathway south toward the tree in question.
"But we're already south of the wood pile," said Harry. "Your plan willtake us directly away from it. It is north of here, I tell you."
"All right," answered Tom. "I know where the wood pile is, and if I amwrong I'll do all the rest of the digging myself. Only if you'll dig inthe direction I tell you, you'll come to it in about forty feet."
So confused were the geographical perceptions of all the boys, and soconfident were they that Tom was wrong, that they made earnest protestagainst digging in the direction indicated by him. But his insistencewas so resolute, and their faith in his sagacity was so strong, thatafter making their protest they yielded and pushed the snow excavationin the direction he had indicated. An hour's digging brought as itsreward the discovery of the wood pile, and instantly every fellow set towork to carry wood into the house over the very imperfect pathway, whichwas being every hour rendered less and less passable by the continuingsnow fall. By working hard, however, they managed to fill all the sparespace in the house with wood and to pile five or six cords more aroundthe doorway.
As they used about half a cord a day in ordinary winter weather, andfrom a cord and a half to two cords a day when the thermometer sank low,this was not a large supply. But at least it would ward off the presentdanger of freezing, and now that the way was open to the wood pile, andcould be kept open by a little shovelling now and then, they could getmore from time to time, as they might need it.
It was past nightfall when this work was completed. The boys had notstopped for a midday dinner, but Ed, with the foresight of anaccomplished cook, had put a kettle of beans on to boil about midday,with just enough pork in it to give the beans a relish, and when nightcame he dished up the meal.
"There's no bread, boys," he said, "because we can't afford two dishesat one meal now. But you remember the Doctor told us that beans arebread as well as meat, and so that's all I have provided."
After supper the boys were very tired from their hard day's work, andyet they were disposed to talk, and at any rate it would not do to goto bed until their supper of boiled pork and beans should have had timeto digest.
"If this snow continues," said Ed, "we fellows will pretty soon have totake our beans without the pork. I have a little of that bacon drippingleft and I'll use that while it lasts. But unless we get some sort ofsupplies within three days we shall be out of meal."
"Are we so near the end as that?" asked Jack.
"Yes. We have nothing left now except two small pieces of salt pork,about twenty pounds of corn meal, and the beans. The pork and the mealwon't last us more than two or three days, and as for the beans, well,we have less than half a peck of them left."
This announcement was received with something like consternation.
"We're nearing the starving point," said Jack. "We must recognize thefact and put ourselves at once upon starvation diet. I move that theDoctor take charge of such provisions as are left to us, with fullpower, to dole them out in the best way to keep life in us till theconditions change."
"Good!" cried all the boys in chorus, and so the motion was carried.
"If worse comes to worst," said Tom, "I'll take my gun, break my way outof here, and kill something fit to eat, at whatever risk. The game ofevery sort is starving now as well as we are. The turkeys, deer, rabbitsand all the rest of them will be out on the mountains hunting forsomething to eat on those spots that the wind has blown clear of snow.It will be curious if I don't get some of them."
"We'll permit nothing of the kind," said Jack, "till the snow stops andfreezing weather makes a crust upon it. To go out now would simply meansuicide. You wouldn't live to get out of this snowdrift, and if you did,you'd perish in the next one, Tom."
"Probably," answered Tom, in a meditative voice. "But I'd rather diethat way, in an effort to save the whole company than stay here andstarve like a rat in a hole."
"But," broke in the Doctor, "we are not yet starving. We are hungry, ofcourse, having had an insufficient supply of food to-day. And we'll behungrier to-morrow, and still hungrier next day. But as I reckon it wehave food enough, at least to keep life in our bodies for three or fourdays to come if we hoard it carefully and eat only so much as isnecessary to sustain life. By that time the weather will have changed insome way, and we shall have found some means of supplying ourselves."
So it was decided that Tom should not court death by attempting to goout upon the mountain under existing conditions.
"By the way, Doctor," asked Ed, "what are your weather predictions?"
"I can't make any," answered the Doctor. "It is still snowing hard; thebarometer is low; the wind, which amounts to nothing, has shifted to thesouth-west--a bad quarter, suggesting more snow--and so far as I can seethere is no promise of severe cold weather, which is what we most wantnow."
In this melancholy plight the boys went to bed, and, thanks to theirhigh health and extreme weariness, they slept soundly.