CHAPTER XXII
THE HIDEOUT
Helen had drawn close to her chum and they sat upon the pile ofleaves that had blown into this lair under the bank, with their armsabout each other's waists.
"What do you suppose will become of us, Ruthie?" Helen whispered.
"Why, how can we tell? Maybe the boys and Long Jerry are searchingfor us right now----"
"In this dreadful storm? Impossible!" declared Helen.
"Well, that they _will_ search for us as soon as it holds up, we canbe sure," Ruth rejoined.
"But, in the meantime? They may be hours finding us. And I am sure Iwould not know how to start for Snow Camp, if the storm should stop."
"Quite true, Helen."
"We won't an-n-ny of us start for Snow Camp again!" quavered LluellaFairfax. "We'll be frozen dead--that's what'll happen to us."
"I _am_ dreadfully cold," said Madge. "How are you, Heavy?"
"Stiff as a poker, thank you!" returned the irrepressible. "Ihaven't any feet at all now. They've frozen and dropped off!"
"Don't talk so terribly!" wailed Belle. "We are freezing to deathhere. I am sleepy. I've read that when folks get drowsy out in astorm like this they are soon done for. Now, isn't that a fact, MadgeSteele?"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the older girl; but Heavy broke in with:
"It strikes me that now is the time to make use of Ruth's matches.Let's build a rousing fire."
"How?" demanded Helen. "Where can we get fuel? It's all under thesnow."
"There's plenty of kindling right under _us_" declared Jennie Stone,vigorously. "And Ruth spoke about the under branches of these treesbeing dry----"
"And so they are," declared Ruth, struggling to her feet. "We mustdo something. A rousing fire against this rock will keep us warm. Wecan heat the rock and then draw the fire out and get behind it. Itwill be fine!"
"Oh, I can't move!" wailed Lluella.
"Luella doesn't want to work," said Madge. "But you get up and doyour share, Miss! If you freeze to death here your mother will neverforgive me."
Of course, it would be Heavy that got into trouble. She made amisstep off the platform and sunk to her arm-pits in a soft bank ofsnow, and it was all the others could do to pull her out. But thiswarmed them, and actually got them to laughing.
"I believe that laughing warms one as much as anything," said Madge.
"Ha, ha!" croaked Heavy, grimly. "_Your_ laughing hasn't warmed _me_any. I'm wet to my waist, I do believe!"
"We shall have to have a fire now to dry Jennie," said Ruth. "Nowtake care."
They had all abandoned their snowshoes long since, and theracquettes would have been of no use to them in the presentemergency, anyway. But Ruth and Madge got to the nearest tree, andfortunately it was half dead. They could break off many of thesmaller branches, and soon brought to the platform a great armful ofthe brush.
Ruth's matches were dry and they heaped up the leaves and rubbishand started a blaze. The other girls brought more fuel and soon a hotfire was leaping against the side of the rock and its circle ofwarmth cheered them. They got green branches of spruce and pine andbrushed away the snow and banked it up in a wall all about theplatform, which served them for a camp. Then they scraped the fireout from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones wouldburn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blazeand the rock.
"This is just scrumptious!" declared Heavy. "We sha'n't freeze now."
"Not if we can keep the fire going," said Helen.
Being warm, they all tried to be cheerful thereafter. They toldstories, they sang their school songs, and played guessing games.
Meanwhile, the wind shrieked through the forest above their"hideout," and the snow continued to fall as though it had nointention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark--and anearly dark it would be on this stormy day.
"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I'dsaved my snow-shoes."
"What for?" demanded Bell. "What possible good could they have beento you, silly?"
"They were strung with deer-hide, and I have heard that whencastaway sailors get very, very hungry, they always chew their boots.I can't spare my boots," quoth Jennie Stone, trying to joke to thebitter end.
The wind wheezed above them, the darkness fell with the snow. Beyondthe glow of the pile of coals on the rocky ledge, the curtain of snowlooked gray--then drab--then actually black. Moon and stars were far,far away; none of their light percolated through the mass of cloudsand falling snow that mantled these big wastes of the backwoods.
"Oh! I never realized anything could be so lonely," whispered Helenin Ruth's ear.
"And how worried your father and Mrs. Murchiston will be," returnedher chum. "Of course, we shall get out of it all right, Helen; but_did_ you ever suppose so much snow could fall at one time?"
"Never!"
"And no sign of it holding up at all," said Madge, who had overheard.
"Sh! Belle and Lluella have curled up here and gone to sleep," saidHelen.
"Lucky Infants," observed Madge.
"I'm going to sleep, too," said Heavy, with a yawn.
"There is no danger now. We're as warm as can be here," Ruth said."Why don't you take a nap, Helen? Madge and I will keep the firstwatch--and keep the fire burning."
"Suppose there should be wolves--or bears," whispered Helen.
"Ridiculous! no self-respecting beast would be out in such a gale.They'd know better," declared Madge Steele, briskly.
"And if one does come here," muttered Jennie, sleepily, "I shallkill and eat him."
She nodded off the next moment and Helen followed her example. Madgeand Ruth talked to keep each other awake. Occasionally they foughttheir way to the half-dead tree and brought back armfuls of itssmaller branches.
"It's a shame," declared Miss Steele, "that girls don't carryknives, and such useful things. Did you ever know a girl to haveanything in her pocket that was worth carrying--if she chanced bygood luck to have a pocket at all? Now, with a knife, we could getsome better wood."
"I know," Ruth admitted. "I know more about camping out than ever Idid before. Next time, I'm going to carry things. You never know whatis going to happen."
As the evening advanced the cold became more biting. They stirred upthe fire with a long stick and the glowing coals threw out increasedwarmth. The four sleeping girls stirred uneasily, and Madge, puttingher hand against the back wall of rock, found that it had cooled.
"When it comes ten o'clock," she said, consulting the watch shecarried, "we'll wake them up, make them stir around a bit, and we'lldrag all these coals over against the rock again. Then we'll heap onthe rubbish and heat up the stones once more. We ought to keep warmafter that till near daylight."
"The smut is spoiling our clothes," said Ruth.
"I don't know as that matters much. I'd rather spoil everything I'vegot on than run the risk of freezing," declared Madge, with conviction.
They did what they could to keep the other girls warm; but beforethe hour Madge had proposed to awaken them, Lluella roused and crieda little because she was so chilly.
"My goodness me, Lu!" yawned Heavy, who was awakened, too, "you arejust the _leakiest_ person that I ever saw! You must have beenborn crying!"
"I never heard that we came into the world laughing," said Madge;"so Lluella isn't different from the rest of us on that score."
"But thank goodness we're not all such snivelers," grumbled Heavy."Want me to get up? What for?"
But when Madge and Ruth explained what they intended to do, all thegirls willingly bestirred themselves and helped in the moving of thefire and the gathering of more fuel.
"Of course we can't expect any help to-night," said Helen. "But Iknow that they'll start out hunting for us at daybreak, no matterwhether it keeps on snowing, or not."
"And a nice time they'll have finding us down in this hole,"complained Belle Tingley.
"Lucky I fell into this hole, just the same," remarked He
avy. "Itjust about saved our lives."
"But I guess we would have been a whole lot better off if we hadn'tmoved from the first big tree Ruth got us to creep under," Helensaid, thoughtfully. "We couldn't have been more than two miles fromSnow Camp then. _Now_ we don't know where we are."
"Never mind that, Helen," advised Madge. "Help get in the wood. Now,we want a big, rousing fire. We'll just heat that old rock up so thatit will stay warm all night. It will be like sleeping as the Russianpeasants do--on top of their stoves."
They had piled the brush on the coals, after scraping the coals backupon the ledge, and the firelight was dancing far up the rock, andshining out into the steadily drifting snow, when suddenly Helenseized her chum's hand and cried:
"Listen! what's that?"
The girls grew silent instantly--and showing no little fear. Fromsomewhere out in the storm a cry came to their ears.
"There it is again," gasped Helen. "I heard it twice before."
"I hear it," repeated Madge. "Wait."
Again the distant sound came forlornly to their ears. That time theyall distinguished it. And they knew that their first hope wasquenched. It was no sound of a rescuing party searching for them inthe storm, for the word--repeated several times, and unmistakable--they all identified.
"_Help!_"