“I want to know!” gibed his twin, borrowing a phrase he had heard New England Libbie use on one occasion.  “If Major Pater could see us now!”

Libbie and Timothy forgot to quote poetry.  The fact was, as Bobby pointed out, buckwheat cakes like those were poems in themselves.

“And when one’s mouth is full of such poems, mere printed verses lack value.”

Romantic as she was, Libbie admitted the truth of her cousin’s remark.

A chime of bells at the door hastened the completion of the meal.  The boys might have sat there longer and, like boa-constrictors, gorged themselves into lethargy.

However, adventure was ahead and the sound of the sledge bells excited the young people.  They got on their coats and caps and furs and mittens and trooped out to the “pung,” as the elder Jaroth called the low, deep, straw-filled sledge to which he had attached four strong farm horses.

There were no seats.  It would be much more comfortable sitting in the straw, and much warmer.  For although the storm had entirely passed the cold was intense.  It nipped every exposed feature, and their breath hung like hoar-frost before them when they laughed and talked.

During the night something had been done to break out the road.  Mr. Jaroth’s horses managed to trample the drifts into something like a hubbly path for the broad sled-runners to slip oven They went on, almost always mounting a grade, for four hours before they came to a human habitation.

The driver pointed his whipstock to a black speck before them and higher up the hill which was sharply defined against the background of pure white.

“Bill Kedders’ hut,” he said to Mr. Gordon. “’Tain’t likely he’s there this time o’ year.  Usually he and his wife go to Cliffdale to spend the winter with their married daughter.”

“Just the same,” cried Bob suddenly, “there’s smoke coming out of that chimney.  Don’t you see it, Uncle Dick?”

“The boy’s right!” ejaculated Jaroth, with sudden anxiety.  “It can’t be that Bill and his woman were caught by this blizzard.  He’s as knowing about weather signs as an old bear, Bill is.  And you can bet every bear in these woods is holed up till spring.”

He even urged the plodding horses to a faster pace.  The hut, buried in the snow to a point far above its eaves, was built against a steep hillside at the edge of the wood, with the drifted road passing directly before its door.  When the pung drew up before it and the horses stopped with a sudden shower of tinkling bell-notes, Mr. Jaroth shouted: 

“Hey, Bill!  Hey, Bill Kedders!”

There was no direct reply to this hail.  But as they listened for a reply there was not one of the party that did not distinguish quite clearly the sound of weeping from inside the mountain hut.

CHAPTER XV

THE LOST GIRL