Had the boys proceeded straight north on leaving the camp, they would have doubtless returned to the lighted zone by keeping with the wind, if the wind had not shifted to the west soon after their departure from the camp.

They walked for what seemed to them to be hours.  In fact, more than once they glanced about hoping to get their direction from a showing of daylight in the sky.

“I don’t believe it ever will be daylight again,” grumbled Sandy, “and I move we stop right here and build a big fire.”

“Can we build a fire in all this ruck?” asked Tommy.

“You bet we can!” was the answer.  “What are we Boy Scouts good for if we can’t build a fire in a storm?”

They cleared a little space in the snow and Tommy brought a handful of dry bark.  Shielding the flickering blaze as much as possible, the boy applied the match he had struck to the bark.  The fire which resulted could have been started in a teacup.

About this he built a skeleton tent of bits of dry soft wood from six to nine inches in length.  His fire was now as large as an ordinary kettle.  Next, the boys threw larger boughs on the blaze, and finally succeeded in surrounding it by large logs.

“There’s one thing about it,” Tommy declared as they warmed their hands over the blaze, “there won’t any wild animals take a bite out of us as long as we keep near this fire!”

“I wish George would come poking along in,” Sandy commented.  “I believe I’ll go out in the thicket after I get warm and see if he isn’t somewhere in this vicinity.  I thought I heard a call over there just a moment ago.”

“Listen, then,” Tommy advised.  “If some one called, we’re likely to hear a repetition of the sound.”

Sure enough, the call came again as the boys huddled over the fire.  It came down with the wind and seemed to be rapidly drawing nearer.

“That sounds to me like a boy’s voice,” Sandy suggested.

“Sounds more like a half-breed to me!” Tommy answered.

“He’s stopped coming on, anyway.”  Sandy exclaimed in a moment.

“Perhaps he’s tumbled down in the snow!” Tommy argued.

“In that case, we’d better be getting out where he is,” said Sandy.

The boys both left the fire and darted out into the darkness, listening for the call but hearing only the roaring of the wind.

CHAPTER VI

THE CAVE OP THE TWO BEARS

“Bears?” exclaimed George, as the lads listened in front of the cave, “do you think there are polar bears up here?  I think it’s cold enough for the big white variety.”

“Put your head inside the cave,” Thede suggested, “and you won’t be wondering whether there are any bears here.”

George did as requested, and soon the warm animal odor noticeable in the various zoos of the country attacked his nostrils.

“What kind of bears are they?” he asked.