The day passed slowly, the others doing all they could for poor Tom. The sufferer roused up several times and took what nourishment was given to him. His head had been bound up, so that the cut on his forehead did not show. Evidently he was suffering from exposure and the loss of blood.
“We must get him to Dawson somehow,” said Dick. “I guess we had better start tomorrow morning early.”
“Just what I think,” replied Sam.
“Suits me,” responded Jack Wumble. “But it ain’t going to be no easy job makin’ it, boys,” he added, seriously.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE GRIP OF THE TORNADO
In the morning all thoughts of moving had to be abandoned. It was snowing furiously and the wind was sweeping around them in a perfect gale.
“We’re snowbound,” said Jack Wumble, after a look around. “Winter this year has come on putty quick.”
It was a dismaying state of affairs and Sam and Dick looked at each other questioningly. What was to be done?
Tom was no better nor was he worse. He lay where they had placed him, close to the fire, and took such nourishment as was given to him. At times he appeared quite rational, but once in a while he asked some question that showed he was not altogether in his right mind.
“We could stay here for some time if it wasn’t for one thing,” remarked Dick. “We have got to have food.”
“Just what I was thinking,” returned Sam. “As it is, we haven’t enough to last us for more than a week at the most.”
“If there was a river anywhere near I’d try my hand at fishin’,” said the old miner. “Ye kin get plenty o’ fish in Alaska, even if ye have to fish through a hole in the ice fer ’em.”
The cold was so intense that the boys were glad enough to stir around in the snow and wind to keep warm. They cut a big pile of firewood and piled the brushwood thickly around the shelter, taking care, however, to keep it from the campfire.
The day went slowly by. At nightfall the snow stopped coming down, but the wind blew as before and if anything it was colder.
“Nothing but ice from now on,” announced Jack Wumble, and he was right, by morning everything was frozen up, “as stiff as a stake,” as Sam expressed it. The day before they had caught some water dripping from the rocks, for drinking purposes, now they had to melt the ice over the fire to get the liquid.
But the sun was shining brightly and that raised their spirits.
“Don’t you suppose, if we made a drag for Tom, that we could get back to Dawson somehow?” questioned Sam, after all had been outside to look at the sky.
“Well, we kin try it, if ye say so,” answered Jack Wumble. “It sure ain’t no fun stayin’ here, with no more grub showin’ itself. If I could only shoot a wildcat fer the meat I’d feel better.”
With so much brushwood at hand it was an easy matter to construct a rude sled-like drag for poor Tom. To make it more comfortable they heaped on it some tundra moss which they found growing on one of the wind-swept stretches nearby.
“Where are you going to take me?” demanded the sufferer, when told that they were going to leave the place.
“We are going to take you to a safe shelter, Tom, and then home,” answered Dick.
“Home! That sounds good!” murmured Tom. “I’ll be glad to get there and rest!” and he gave a long-drawn sigh.
The start was made by ten o’clock, Tom being warmly wrapped in blankets, and all the traps being piled on the drag in front and behind him. A rope had been tied fast in front and on this Wumble and Dick pulled, while Sam had hold of the drag itself, to pull and to steer.
It was still bitter cold and many times on the way those hauling the drag stopped, to make sure that Tom was comfortable and in no danger of getting his nose or his ears frostbitten. Fortunately the route was largely down hill, so pulling the long drag was not such a hardship as it otherwise might have been.
At noon they stopped in a small hollow, sheltered from the wind, and made themselves a hot pot of coffee, and ate a frugal lunch. Tom sat up for a few minutes and the others were glad to see that the journey had done him no harm, either physically or mentally.
By the middle of the afternoon it was snowing again and they had all they could do to keep to the trail. The old miner shook his head dubiously.
“Reckon as how we’re up against it,” was his comment. “If it gits much wuss we’ll have to look fer another shelter, boys.”
The wind had let up during the middle of the day, but now it commenced to blow with a suddenness that was alarming. It sent the whirling snow into their faces with pitiless fury and almost blinded them, while they breathed with difficulty.
“Got to git out o’ this, an’ mighty quick too!” gasped Jack Wumble.
“Which way shall we turn, Jack?” questioned Dick. “I can’t see at all.”
“I think thar’s a woods below—let’s strike fer that, lad. It will mean shelter an’ firewood, at least.”
They hurried on, pulling the long drag after them. They were in a valley and suddenly they came to a broad patch of ice and Sam went sprawling on his back. His brother helped him to arise, and onward they went once more, but with added caution.
“This must be a lake,” said Dick, as, after traveling for some time, they found the ice still under their feet. “Or else a river.”
“Can it be safe?” asked Sam. “Why, it wasn’t frozen over four days ago!”
“We’ll be careful,” cried Wumble. “Even if it is hard enough, there may be airholes around.”
The situation seemed to grow steadily worse. The wind blew so hard that at times they were fairly carried along by it. The snow cut off the view from all sides, so they could not determine in what direction they were traveling.
“Here’s something ahead!” cried Wumble presently. “A hut—a miner’s hut!”
“Let’s get inside, just as quickly as we can,” returned Sam, his teeth chattering. “I’m mo—most frozen stiff!”
The hut was on a small bank, evidently on the shore of the lake, or river, on which they had been traveling. It was closed up tightly, and a pounding on the door brought no response.
“Nobuddy home, I reckon,” said Jack Wumble. “Well, here goes to git in,” and he pushed on the door.
It was not locked and swung inward, revealing a single room, about twelve feet square and lit up by one small window. Opposite the door was a fireplace, partly filled with cold ashes. On a shelf and on a rude table rested some cooking utensils, and to one side of the hut was a bunk containing some pine tree boughs and several old blankets.
“Hello!” cried Dick. “Anybody in here?”
There was no answer, and a quick look around convinced them that nobody had been in the place for several days if not weeks. Yet on a shelf in a rude locker were a number of stores—beans, coffee, a side of bacon, and several other things.
“Let us start a fire, first thing, and get thawed out,” suggested Sam, and this was done, the boys finding plenty of wood piled up behind the hut. They had already brought Tom in from the drag and placed him in the bunk, and now they closed the door.
“In this awful blow, we’ll have to watch that fire carefully,” warned Wumble. “Ef we don’t, we may burn down the shebang over our heads.”
The blaze soon warmed them all up and even Tom said he felt better. The boys looked over the stores in the cabin with interest.
“What about touching these?” said Dick to the old miner. “Have we any right to do it? Of course we’d pay for the things.”
“We won’t touch ’em unless we have to, Dick. It ain’t a question o’ pay in sech a spot as this. The owner may be comin’ back ‘and dependin’ on ’em. A man as wants grub won’t part with it fer no amount o’ gold. Why, I’ve seen the time, in camp in winter, when a feller wouldn’t sell a quart o’ plain beans fer a hundred doll
ars o’ dust!”
“Yes, I know that. All right, we’ll leave the things alone.” And Dick sighed. How good an old fashion home dinner would have tasted to all of them just then!
The wind continued to howl, occasionally rocking the hut in a fashion that alarmed them. Sam asked the old miner if there was any danger of it being tipped over.
“There is allers danger when the wind gits too high,” was the reply.
Presently the sparks commenced to blow out into the room and the wind outside grew wilder and wilder. They stamped out the fire and sat huddled together in the darkness, Tom with the rest, for he was now a little stronger and did not want to remain alone.
And then came a shock as paralyzing as it was appalling. The hut seemed to be lifted into the air and whirled around. Then came a crash, and the structure fell over on the ice and snow of the river, or lake, below. The boys tumbled in a heap, with Jack Wumble on top of them. Before they could get up, all felt themselves moving swiftly along in a wind that was blowing little short of a tornado. All was pitch black around them and to get up, or to do anything, was totally out of the question. Sam started to ask Dick a question, when something hit him on the head, and he fell back unconscious.
CHAPTER XXVII
LOST IN THE FIELDS OF ICE
“Where in the world are we, Jack?”
“Don’t ask me, Dick! I reckon the wind must ’a’ swept us up to the North Pole!”
“Tom, are you all right?”
“Well, I’m here,” came back faintly from the suffering one. “What did we do, sail through the air?”
“We sailed through something, Tom—and I guess we went about a mile a minute, too. Where is Sam?”
“I don’t know,” answered the old miner. “It’s so snowy I can’t see a thing.”
“Sam! Sam!” yelled Dick, with as much force as he could command.
There was no reply. If the youngest Rover was nearby he was in no condition to answer the call.
A full hour had elapsed since that terrific gust of wind had tumbled the hut down on the river, for such the sheet of water proved to be. Then had followed a tornado, or hurricane, or cyclone, the boys and the old miner could not tell which. Hut and occupants had been carried along the stream on the ice with the velocity of an express train. From the river they had been swept out over a lake, and finally had landed in a big bank of snow with a crash that had shattered the hut into fragments.
All had been so shaken up that for some minutes nobody could speak. The old miner was the first to recover and he had stumbled around until he found Dick, who was holding poor Tom in his arms. Both of the brothers had been pretty well pounded, but were otherwise uninjured by their thrilling experience.
It was snowing again, the snow now coming down in regular “chunks” as Dick said. The wind had gone down a little, but was still blowing fiercely. All was dark around the remains of the hut.
“Sam! Sam!” yelled Dick, again and again, and staggered around in the snow, searching for the missing one. Then he landed on the ice of the lake and went flat on his back, and Jack Wumble came after him. As they picked themselves up they heard a faint cry and caught sight of Sam, lying but a few yards away.
“Are ye hurted any, lad?” asked Wumble, who was first at the youngest Rover’s side.
“I—I don’t know,” gasped Sam. “Some—something struck me on th—the head.”
With the assistance of the old miner and Dick he arose to his feet, and all three staggered back to where Tom had been left. The ruins of the hut rested against a snowbank, and, to get out of the wind, they crawled between the logs and the snow.
“This is the worst yet,” was Dick’s comment. “How are we ever to find our way back to Dawson from here?”
Nobody could answer that question. Just now they had all they could do to keep warm.
“You stay here while I take a little look around,” said Jack Wumble, presently. “I may learn somethin’ wuth knowin’.”
“But don’t get lost, Jack,” cautioned Dick.
“I’ll be careful,” was the answer.
The old miner was gone less than ten minutes when he set up a shout.
“What have you found?” asked Dick, quickly.
“Here’s a signboard,” was the reply. “I reckon as how there’s a trail here. It says somethin’, but I can’t make it out.”
“Let’s light a torch,” suggested Sam, and this was done. They brushed the snow from the signboard and read the following, printed in crude letters:
10 mILes to Sublers sTORes
Below this lettering was a crude drawing of a hand pointing up the lake.
“Subler’s Stores!” cried the old miner. “I’ve heard o’ that place. It’s quite a depot for supplies. If we could only git thar we’d be all right.”
“Let’s try it,” suggested Dick. “The wind is right down the lake, so it will make traveling that much easier.”
They labored hard, in the darkness and wind, to construct a drag out of the ruins of the hut. On this they placed Tom and also such of their scanty traps and provisions as still remained to them.
But once out on the lake, they realized that the task before them was no easy one. Here the wind blew with terrific force, sending them further and further away from the shore which they wanted to skirt. It had stopped snowing and seemed to be growing colder.
“I—I ca—can’t stand this!” gasped Sam, after a while. “I’m fr—freezing!”
“So—so am I,” answered Dick. “Tom, are you all right?”
“I’m pretty co—cold,” was the chattered-out reply.
“We can’t make it, I reckon,” said the old miner, who was as chilled as any of them. “We’ll have to go ashore an’ git out of the wind an’ build a fire to thaw out by.”
But getting ashore was out of the question. When they tried to turn around the fierce wind fairly took their breath away. So they continued to advance, the wind at times carrying them almost off their feet.
“We are on the ice and no mistake!” cried Dick, after a while. “See, the wind has blown the snow completely away.”
He was right. All around them was the ice, dark and exceedingly slippery. They seemed to be in the midst of a great field of it.
“I don’t know where I am now,” said Jack Wumble. “We are lost.”
“Lost!” echoed Sam.
“That’s the truth of it, Sam,” replied Dick. “We are lost right out here on this ice.”
“But Subler’s Stores?”
“I haven’t the least idea in what direction they are.”
“But if we follow the wind—?”
“The wind seems to be changing. Just watch it.”
Dick was right, the wind was shifting, first in one direction, then in another.
“If we stay out here, we’ll be frozen stiff,” said Tom. As he could not move around he felt the cold more than did the others.
“Let us follow the wind—it is bound to bring us somewhere, and that is better than staying here,” said Dick, finally.
For the want of something better to suggest, the others agreed, and on they went once more, dragging Tom and their few traps and stores behind them.
Thus another hour passed. By this time they were so exhausted they could scarcely stand. They staggered onward until Sam fell. He was so weak the others had to assist him to arise.
“I’m all in!” gasped the youngest Rover. “You go on and save yourselves.”
“And leave you?” cried Dick. “Never! Sam, you know me better than that,” he added, reproachfully.
“But, Dick, I—I can’t walk another step!”
“Then sit on the drag with Tom.”
“But you and Wumble—”
“We’ll pull ye somehow,” said the old miner, grimly. “We ought to be gittin’ some
whar soon.”
It was now dark once more and snowing again. The wind had gone down a trifle, but it still carried them forward, first in one direction and then another.
Presently the drag hit a series of rocks, covered with ice and snow. Over it went, sending Tom and Sam sprawling. Dick and Wumble also fell, for the way had suddenly grown uneven.
“I think we are near the shore now,” said Wumble. “Them rocks wouldn’t be likely to be out in the middle o’ the lake.”
“I think I see something!” cried Dick. “Over yonder.”
With caution they advanced, and at last made out a small building, located between a number of large rocks. All around the building was snow and ice.
“A light!” cried Jack Wumble. “Somebody is thar! This is the best news yet.”
He stumbled through the snow and over the ice and rocks until he reached the door of the cabin. He pounded loudly on the portal.
“Who is there?” demanded a rough voice from within.
“Friends,” answered the old miner. “Let us in—we are ’most frozen to death.”
“Who are you?” went on the voice from inside the cabin. “Be careful now, I am armed.”
Cautiously the door to the cabin was opened and a very old man appeared. He was armed with a shotgun, which he pointed at those outside.
“I can’t see ye,” he said, slowly. “Come a bit closer, but not too clost, until I make sure who ye are.”
“Why, it’s Tony Bings!” fairly shouted Jack Wumble. “How are ye, Tony? Don’t ye know me?”
“Jack Wumble!” cried the old man. “How in the name o’ fate did you git here?” And he lowered his gun and opened wide the door of the cabin for the old miner to enter.
CHAPTER XXVIII
AT TONY BINGS’S CABIN
Tony Bings was an old miner who had spent several years in Colorado, working close to Jack Wumble. The two knew each other well, and were warm friends.
“Come right in,” said Tony Bings, when matters had been explained to him. “It’s a wonder ye ain’t friz stiff, in sech a wind! It’s been a-blowin’ great guns. Once or twice I thought the cabin was goin’ over.”
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