As Bert trudged along through the storm he found himself becoming thirsty. If you have ever walked a long distance, even in a snowstorm, you may have felt the same way yourself. And perhaps you have tried to quench your thirst and cool your mouth by eating snow. If you have, you doubtless remember that instead of getting less thirsty you were only made more so. This is what always happens when a person eats snow. Ice is different, if you hold pieces of it in your mouth until it melts.
“My! I wish I had a drink,” exclaimed Bert, speaking aloud, as he had done a number of times since setting out alone to bring help to Nan and Mrs. Bimby. “I wish I had a drink of water!”
Now Bert Bobbsey knew better than to eat dry snow. Once when he was a small boy, smaller even than Freddie, he had been playing out in the snow and had eaten it whenever he felt thirsty. As a result he had been made ill.
“Never eat snow again, Bert,” his father had told him at the time. And to make Bert remember Mr. Bobbsey had read the boy a story of travelers in the Arctic regions searching for the North Pole. The story told how, no matter how tired or cold these travelers were, they always stopped to melt the snow and make water or tea of it when they were thirsty. They never ate dry snow.
“I’ve either got to find a spring to get a drink, or melt some of this snow,” said Bert to himself, as he walked on, limping a little, though his leg was feeling better than at first. “But I guess if I did find a spring it would be frozen over. Now how can I melt some snow?”
Bert had been on camping trips with his father, and he had often seen Mr. Bobbsey make use of things he found beside the road or in the woods to help out in a time of some little trouble. With this in mind, the boy began to look around for something that would help him get a drink of water, or to melt some snow into water which he could drink after it had cooled.
But to melt snow needed a fire, he knew, and also something that would hold the snow before and after it was melted.
“I need a pan or a can and a fire,” decided Bert. “I wonder if I have any matches?”
He felt in his pockets and found some, though he did not usually carry them, for they are rather dangerous for children. But Bert felt that he was now getting to be quite a boy.
“Well, here’s a start,” he said to himself as he felt the matches in his pocket. But he did not take them out, for the snow was blowing about, and Bert knew that a wet match was as bad as none at all. He must keep his matches dry as the old settlers were advised to “keep their powder dry.”
“If I could only make a fire,” thought Bert, coming to a stop and looking about him at a spot that looked as if it might once have been a camp. All he could see was a waste of snow and some trees. But wood for fires, he knew, grew on trees, though any wood which could be made to burn must be dry.
“Maybe I could scrape away some snow and make a fire,” thought Bert. “The thing I need most, though, is a tin can to hold snow and water. Ouch! My leg hurts!” he exclaimed.
His leg, just then, seemed to get a “kink” in it, as he said afterward. He kicked out, as football players do sometimes when their legs get twisted.
As it happened, Bert kicked his foot into a little pile of snow, and next he was surprised to find that he had kicked something out. At first it seemed to be a lump of ice, but as it rolled a few feet and the snow fell away, the boy found that he had kicked into view an empty tin tomato can!
“Here’s luck!” cried Bert, as he sprang after the can before it could be covered from sight in the snow again. “This sure is luck! I can melt some snow in this now!”
Taking the can in his hand he knocked it against his shoe, thus getting rid of the snow that filled it. The can was opened half way, and the tin top was bent back, making a sort of handle to it, which Bert was glad to see. It would enable him without burning his fingers to lift the can off the fire he intended to build.
“All I need now is some dry wood, and I can make a fire and melt snow to make water,” he said aloud. “If I had some tea I could make a regular hot drink, like they have up at the North Pole. But I guess water will be all right. Now for some wood!”
He made his way over to a clump of trees and, by kicking away the snow, he managed to find some dead sticks. As the snow was dry they were not very wet, but Bert feared they were not dry enough to kindle quickly. And he had only a few matches.
“I’ve got some paper, though,” he told himself, as lie felt in his pockets. “A little soft, dry wood, and that, will start a fire and the other wood will burn, even if it is a little damp.”
One of the lessons Bert’s father had taught him was to make a campfire, and Bert put some of this instruction to use now. He hunted about until he found a fallen log, and by clearing away the snow at one end he revealed a rotten end. This soft wood made very good tinder, to start a fire.
The outer end of the rotten log was rather damp. But by kicking away this latter, Bert got at some wood that was quite dry—just what he wanted.
He swung his foot that was not lame from side to side, clearing a place on the ground at one side of the log, and there he laid his paper and the wood to start his fire.
You may be sure Bert was very anxious as he struck one of his few matches and held it to the paper. He hardly breathed as he watched the tiny flame. And then, all at once, the blaze flickered out after it had caught one edge of the paper!
“This is bad luck!” murmured Bert. “I’ve got a few more chances, though.”
He crumpled up the paper in a different shape, arranged it carefully under the pile of splinters and rotten wood, and struck another match. This time he made sure to hold in his breath completely, for it was his breath before, he feared, that had blown out the match.
This time the paper caught and blazed up merrily. Bert wanted to shout and cry “hurrah!” but he did not. The fire was not really going yet, and he was getting more and more thirsty all the while. It was all he could do not to scoop up some of the dry snow and cram it into his mouth. But he held back.
“I’ll have some water melted in a little while,” he told himself. “My fire is going now.”
And, indeed, the tiny flame had caught the soft wood and was beginning to ignite the twigs. From them the larger and heavier pieces of wood would catch, and then he could set the can of snow on to melt into water.
Still hardly daring to breathe, Bert fed his fire in the shelter of the half snow-covered log. It was beginning to melt the snow all around it now, but of course this melted snow ran away and was lost. Bert could not drink that.
When the fire was going well, Bert kicked around on the ground under the log until he found some stones. With these he made a little fireplace, enclosing the blaze, and when he had some embers there, with more wood at hand to pile on, he brought the can to the fire and scooped the tin full of snow.
“This is going to be my teakettle,” said Bert, with a little smile. “Mother and Nan would laugh if they could see me now.”
If you have ever melted a pan of snow on even so good a fire as is in your mother’s kitchen range, you know that snow melts very slowly. It was this way with Bert. He thought the snow in the can would never melt down into water, and when it did, and was fairly boiling, he took hold of the top and threw all the water out!
Why did he do that? you ask. Well, because he wanted to be sure the can was clean, and his mother had told him that boiling water would destroy almost any kind of germ. The can might have had germs in it, having lain outdoors a long time.
“But now I guess it’s clean,” Bert said, as he again filled it with snow after he had rinsed it out. Then he waited for the second quantity of snow to melt, and when this had cooled, which did not take very long, Bert took a drink. The snow water did not taste very good—boiled water very seldom does—but it was safer than eating dry snow.
“Well, now I must travel on,” said Bert, as he scattered snow over the fire to put it out. “I’ll carry a little water with me in the can, for I may get thirsty again. It won’t
freeze for a while.”
He walked along as fast as he could, with the pain in his leg, but the snow came down harder and faster and the wind blew colder. Bert looked about for some place of shelter and saw where one tree had blown over against another, making a sort of little den, or cave, near the side of a high rock, which was so steep that the snow had not clung to it, leaving the big stone bare.
“I’ll go in there and stay awhile,” thought Bert, as he caught sight of this shelter. “Maybe the storm won’t last long.”
But as he started to enter the place he heard a growl! There was a scurrying in the dried leaves that formed a carpet for the den, and then, in the half-darkness, Bert saw two green eyes staring at him! He smelled a wild odor, too, that told him some beast of the forest dwelt in this den.
“Oh! A wildcat!” cried Bert, as, a moment later, there sprang out at him the same animal, or one very like it, that he had snowballed a little while before. Probably it was another lynx, but Bert did not stop to think of this.
Forgetting his plan of using snowball bullets, Bert dropped his little bundle of lunch, part of which he had eaten, and began to climb the nearest tree.
He learned then, if he did not know it before, that a wildcat, which was the animal he had surprised in its den, is a good tree-climber; as good as your house cat, or even better.
When half way up the tree, Bert looked down and saw the yellow wildcat coming after him. Probably the animal thought that Bert had no right near its den.
“This is bad!” thought Bert, as he climbed higher and higher. Then, as he saw the beast still coming, he realized that he must, somehow, get away. He saw the big rock not far from the tree. The rock had a small flat top, covered with snow, but the sides were smooth and almost straight up and down, and had no snow on them.
“If I could get there the wildcat couldn’t get me,” thought Bert. “And if it tries to jump after me I can snowball it. I’m going to get on the rock!”
It was the best plan he could think of, and a moment later, having got in good position, he gave a jump, left the tree, and landed in the soft snow on top of the big rock.
With a snarl and a growl the wildcat stopped climbing up as it saw what the boy had done. Then it began climbing down the tree while Bert, from his place of safety, watched. He wondered what the bobcat would do.
The animal walked over to where Bert had dropped his package of lunch and began tearing at the paper.
“Maybe if he eats that he won’t want to get me,” thought Bert. “But how long shall I have to stay here?”
The wildcat, having eaten Bert’s lunch, which did not take long, looked up at the boy on the rock. It sniffed at the base of the big stone, and reared up with its forepaws against it.
“You can’t climb here!” called Bert aloud. “If you do I’ll hit you on the nose with snowballs!”
And then, as though to add to the boy’s troubles, it began to snow hard, a wall of white flakes falling around the lone laddie on the big rock.
CHAPTER XXII
Found at Last
Bert Bobbsey was really frightened and alarmed, caught as he was in the storm on the big rock, with a wildcat sniffing around at the bottom. He could not even see well enough to throw snowballs at the creature, and, even if he could have driven it away, he felt that it would not be safe for him to come down off the big stone.
“He can’t get me while I’m up here, I don’t believe,” said Bert to himself. “But I can’t stay here very long, or I’ll be snowed under. What shall I do?”
Indeed he was in what he said afterward was a “regular pickle.” And then Bert thought of calling for help. He wondered why he had not done that before.
Standing up on the high rock Bert sent his voice shouting out into the storm.
“Help! Help! Help!” he shouted.
Bert did not know just whom he expected to help him. He did not know how far he was from Mrs. Bimby’s cabin, nor how far he was away from Cedar Camp. All he knew was that he was in trouble and needed help. The only way was to shout as loudly as he could.
At his first call the wildcat at the foot of the rock snarled, growled, and tried to leap up. But the sides were too steep and smooth. Bert could catch glimpses of the animal when the snow came down a little less heavily now and again, making a sort of opening in the white curtain.
“Help! Help! Help!” cried Bert again and again.
Curiously enough it was Flossie and Freddie, who in the blizzard had wandered near to the rock, who heard Bert’s cry. Through the storm the voice came to them, though of course they did not know it was their brother calling.
“Hey!” exclaimed Freddie, who, with his sister, had been floundering about in the drifts, the small Bobbsey twins trying to find their former tracks in the snow so they could work their way back. But the flakes had fallen into their footprints, and had been blown over them so deeply that the prints were blotted out.
“Do you hear that?” asked Freddie of Flossie.
“Yes,” she answered, as the voice came to her ears. “It’s somebody saying he’ll help us.”
That is what she thought it was—someone wanting to help her and Freddie, not someone in need of help.
Again came the call, and it sounded so close that the two small Bobbsey twins knew which way to go to reach it.
“We’re coming! We’re coming!” shouted Freddie. “Come on, Rover! I guess that’s daddy coming to help us! We’re coming!”
With a bark the dog bounded through the storm after the two children, and you can imagine how surprised Bert Bobbsey on the rock was when he heard shouts in answer to his own. He did not know, of course, that Freddie and Flossie were anywhere near him. He thought it was his father and some of the men from Cedar Camp.
A little later the small Bobbsey twins came within sight of the big rock. They could not see Bert on it on account of the blinding snow. But Rover caught the smell of the wildcat, and with a savage bark he sprang to drive the creature away.
“Good old Rover! Good dog!” cried Bert, as the snow stopped for a moment and he caught sight of the dog that he knew. “Sic him, Rover!”
And Rover rushed at the wildcat with such fierceness that the beast scuttled back to its den under the half-fallen tree. And then Bert looked and saw Flossie and Freddie.
At the same time the small Bobbsey twins looked up and caught a glimpse of their brother on the rock.
“Oh, Bert!” cried Freddie, “did you come out to look for us? We’re lost!”
“So am I, I guess,” Bert answered, as he jumped down, landing in a bank of soft snow and beginning to pet Rover. “Where in the world did you children come from?”
“We came out after daddy and Mr. Jim and Mr. Case,” Freddie went on. “They’re going to take some things to Mrs. Bimby.”
“Mrs. Bimby!” cried Bert “Why, I left her and Nan this morning. They haven’t got hardly anything left to eat. But where is the camp?”
“Don’t you know?” asked Freddie. “We don’t know. We’re lost.”
“That’s bad,” said Bert, looking at the swirling snow all about. “And the wildcat ate my lunch.”
“We’ve a little left,” Flossie said. “Did you save any chestnuts, Bert?”
“I brought some, but I ate ’em. But Nan’s got some, back at Mrs. Bimby’s cabin, if we can find it. You say daddy started out after us?”
“Yes, to find you and Nan and take something to Mrs. Bimby,” explained Freddie. “Her husband was at our camp. He got lost in the snow, and he said his wife didn’t have anything in the cupboard.”
“She didn’t—not very much,” Bert said. “I shot a rabbit, but I guess that’s all eaten now. But say, you two oughtn’t to be out here alone!”
“We’re not alone now,” Flossie said. “We got you with us!”
“Well, I’m glad you met me,” Bert said. “And I’m glad Rover drove that wildcat away. I scared one with snowballs, but I couldn’t hit this one very well. Now we’d better try to
get back to camp. I guess there’s going to be another storm.”
“Will it snow a whole lot and cover us all up?” asked Flossie, anxiously.
The poor little girl had had quite enough of snow, cold wind, blizzards, and bad weather of all sorts.
“Oh, I guess maybe it won’t snow so very hard,” answered Bert. He did not want to confess to Flossie and Freddie that he was a bit frightened.
“Maybe Rover could show us which way to go to find Cedar Camp,” suggested Freddie. “Dogs are smart, and Rover is a good dog.”
“He was nice to us when we sat under the pine tree,” went on Flossie. “And he ran out and brought in pine cones and he shook himself and made snow fly all over me.”
“You didn’t try to eat pine cones, did you?” asked Bert.
“Oh, no,” Flossie answered. “We just threw them for Rover to play with. But I’m too tired to play now. I want to go to bed.”
“Oh, Flossie, you don’t want to go to bed now, do you?” asked Bert. “Why, if you were to lie down in the snow you’d freeze.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep in the snow,” Flossie said, and she was beginning to whine a little. No wonder, for it had been a hard day for her and Freddie.
“No, I don’t want to sleep in the snow,” the little girl said. “I want my own little bunk at the camp.”
“Well, we’ll be there pretty soon,” Bert said, as kindly as he could.
“Carry me!” begged Flossie, when she had stumbled on a little farther, walking between her two brothers.
“All right. I guess I can carry you,” said Bert, but he was worrying about his leg a little. It was not so bad when he bore his own weight on it. But could he carry Flossie?
However, he was not going to give up without trying, and so, when they came to a little sheltered place, where the snow was not quite so deep, Bert stooped down.
“I’ll take you pickaback, Flossie,” he said.
“Oh, I like that!” laughed his sister, as she climbed up on her brother’s back.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 171