The mountaineer riding by the side of Colonel Winchester was looking eagerly, whenever a break in the clouds occurred.  At length, he asked him for the glasses again and, after looking intently, said: 

“Jest between the edges uv two clouds I caught a glimpse uv a man, an’ he wuz wavin’ a flag, which wuz a sheet from his own bed.  It would be Jake Hening, ‘cause that wuz his place, an’ he told me to go straight on to the cove, ez they wuz now expectin’ us thar!”

“Who is expecting us?”

“Friends uv ours.  People ‘roun’ here in the mountings who want to see you make hash uv them gorillers.  I reckon they’re fixin’ things to keep you warm.  We oughter see another man an’ his sheet afore long.  Thar would be no trouble ’bout it, ef this snow wuzn’t so thick.”

As they advanced farther into the mountains the noise of the wind increased.  Confined in the gorges it roared in anger to get out, and then whistled and shrieked as it blew along the slopes.  The snow did not cease to fall.  The road had long since been covered up, but Reed led them on with sure eye and instinct.

An hour later he was able to detect another figure on the crest of a ridge, this time to their left, and he observed the waving of the signal with great satisfaction.

“It’s all right,” he said to Colonel Winchester.  “They’re waitin’ for us in the cove, not many uv ’em, uv course, but they’ll help.”

“Have we much more riding?” asked the colonel.  “I don’t think the men are suffering, but our horses can’t stand it much longer.”

“Not more’n an hour.”

They passed soon between high cliffs, and faced a fierce wind which almost blinded them for the time, but, when they emerged they found better shelter and, presently, Reed led them off the main road, then through another narrow gorge and into the cove.  They had passed around a curving wall of the mountain and, as it burst upon them suddenly, the spectacle was all the more pleasant.

Before them, like a sunken garden, lay a space of twenty or thirty acres, hemmed in by the high mountains, which seemed fairly to overhang its level spaces.  A small creek flowed down from a ravine on one side, and dashed out of a ravine on the other.  Splendid oaks, elms and maples grew in parts of the valley, and there was an orchard and a garden, but the greater part of it was cleared, and so well protected by the lofty mountains that most of the snow seemed to blow over it.  In the snuggest corner of the cove stood a stout double log cabin and, in the open space around, great fires were roaring and sending up lofty flames, a welcome sight to the stiff and cold horsemen.  Fully twenty mountaineers, long and lank like Reed, were gathered around them, and were feeding them constantly.

“What’s this I see?” exclaimed Warner.  “A little section of heaven?”

“Not heaven, perhaps,” said Dick, “but the next door to it.”