Silver Lake | Page 7

do any injury worth mentioning.
When Roy had fairly emerged from the snow he joined his sister in the laugh, but suddenly he stopped, and his face became very grave.
"What's the matter?" asked Nelly, with an anxious look.
"My snow-shoe's broken," said Roy.
There was greater cause for anxiety on account of this accident than the reader is perhaps aware of. It may be easily understood that in a country where the snow averages four feet in depth, no one can walk half-a-mile without snow-shoes without being thoroughly exhausted; on the other hand, a man can walk thirty or forty miles a day by means of snow-shoes.
"Can't you mend it?" asked Nelly.
Roy, who had been carefully examining the damaged shoe, shook his head.
"I've nothing here to do it with; besides, it's an awful smash. I must just try to scramble home the best way I can. Come, it's not very far, we'll only be a bit late for dinner."
The snow-shoe having been bandaged, after a fashion, with a pocket-handkerchief, the little wanderers began to retrace their steps; but this was now a matter of extreme difficulty, owing to the quantity of snow which had fallen and almost obliterated the tracks. The broken shoe, also, was constantly giving way, so that ere long the children became bewildered as well as anxious, and soon lost the track of their outward march altogether. To make matters worse, the wind began to blow clouds of snow-drift into their faces, compelling them to seek the denser parts of the forest for shelter.
They wandered on, however, in the belief that they were drawing nearer home every step, and Roy, whose heart was stout and brave, cheered up his sister's spirit so much that she began to feel quite confident their troubles would soon be over.
Presently all their hopes were dashed to the ground by their suddenly emerging upon an open space, close to the very spot where the snow-mass had fallen on Roy's head. After the first feeling of alarm and disappointment had subsided, Roy plucked up heart and encouraged Nelly by pointing out to her that they had at all events recovered their old track, which they would be very careful not to lose sight of again.
Poor Nelly whimpered a little, partly from cold and hunger as well as from disappointment, as she listened to her brother's words; then she dried her eyes and said she was ready to begin again. So they set off once more. But the difficulty of discerning the track, if great at first, was greater now, because the falling and drifting snow had well-nigh covered it up completely. In a very few minutes Roy stopped, and, confessing that he had lost it again, proposed to return once more to their starting point to try to recover it. Nelly agreed, for she was by this time too much fatigued and alarmed to have any will of her own, and was quite ready to do whatever she was told without question.
After wandering about for nearly an hour in this state of uncertainty, Roy at last stopped, and, putting his arm round his sister's waist, said that he had lost himself altogether! Poor Nelly, whose heart had been gradually sinking, fairly broke down; she hid her face in her brother's bosom, and wept.
"Come now, don't do that, dear Nell," said Roy, tenderly, "I'll tell you what we shall do--we'll camp in the snow! We have often done it close to the house, you know, for fun, so we'll do it now in earnest."
"But it's so dark and cold," sobbed Nelly, looking round with a shudder into the dark recesses of the forest, which were by that time enshrouded by the gathering shades of night; "and I'm so hungry too! Oh me! what shall we do?"
"Now don't get so despairing," urged Roy, whose courage rose in proportion as his sister's sank; "it's not such an awful business after all, for father is sure to scour the woods in search of us, an' if we only get a comfortable encampment made, an' a roarin' fire kindled, why, we'll sit beside it an' tell stories till they find us. They'll be sure to see the fire, you know, so come--let's to work."
Roy said this so cheerfully that the child felt a little comforted, dried her eyes, and said she would "help to make the camp."
This matter of making an encampment in the snow, although laborious work, was by no means a novelty to these children of the backwoods. They had often been taught how to do it by Cousin Walter and Larry O'Dowd, and had made "playing at camps" their chief amusement in fine winter days. When, therefore, they found themselves compelled to "camp-out" from necessity, neither of them was at a loss how to proceed. Roy drew a