“Never mind about the sod houses,” rejoined Pennington, cheerfully.  “They’re mighty good places in a blizzard.  But I think I’ll stay outside too, if Colonel Winchester will let us.”

The colonel soon disposed his force.  The younger officers were to sleep before a fire as they wished, although about half way between midnight and morning they were to join the watch, which he intended to be strong and vigilant.  Meanwhile they ate supper and their spirits were so high that they almost made a festival of it.  The aroma of the ham and bacon, broiled in the winter open, would have made a jaded epicure hungry.  They had sardines and oysters, in tins, and plenty of coffee, with army biscuits which were not hard to them.  Some of them wanted to sing, but the colonel would not allow it in the cove, although they could chatter as much as they pleased around the fires.

“We don’t need to sing,” said Dick.  “The wind is doing it for us.  Just listen to it, will you?”

All the mountain winds were blowing that night, coming from every direction, and then circling swiftly in vast whirlwinds, while the ridges and peaks and gorges made them sing their songs in many keys.  Now it was a shriek, then a whistle, and then a deep full tone like an organ.  Blended, it had a majestic effect which was not lost on the young soldiers.

“I’ve heard it in the Green Mountains,” said Warner, “but not under such conditions as we have here.  I’m glad I have so much company.  I think it would give me the creeps to be in the cove alone, with that storm howling over my head.”

“Not to mention Slade and Skelly hunting through the snowdrifts for you,” said Pennington.  “They’d take a good long look for you, George, knowing what a tremendous fellow you are, and then Dick and I would be compelled to take the trouble and danger of rescuing you.”

“I hold you to that,” said Warner.  “You do hereby promise and solemnly pledge yourselves in case of my capture by Slade, Skelly or anybody else, to come at once through any hardship and danger to my rescue.”

“We do,” they said together, and they meant it.

Their situation was uncommon, and their pleasure in it deepened.  The snow still fell, but the lean-tos, built with so much skill by soldiers and mountaineers, protected them, and the fires before them sank to great beds of gleaming coals that gave out a grateful warmth.  Far overhead the wind still shrieked and howled, as if in anger because it could not get at them in the deep cleft.  But for Dick all these shrieks and howls were transformed into a soothing song by his feeling of comfort, even of luxury.  The cove was full of warmth and light and he basked in it.

Pennington and Warner fell asleep, but Dick lay a while in a happy, dreaming state.  He felt as he looked up at the cloudy sky and driving snow that, after all, there was something wild in every man that no amount of civilization could drive out.  An ordinary bed and an ordinary roof would be just as warm and better sheltered, but they seldom gave him the same sense of physical pleasure that he felt as he lay there with the storm driving by.