The Corner House Girls Snowbound Part 38

This idea seemed to amuse Rowdy a good deal. He laughed aloud--and the laugh did not sound just like a boy's laugh, either. Tess stared at him wonderingly.

"If Rafe's going to be so mean," he said, "he ought to be put out. Go ahead and peel the potatoes and onions, Rafe."

"Sha'n't. That's girl's work," growled Rafe.

"Oh! If you've got a knife I'll peel them," said Tess. "I don't mind."

"All right," Rowdy said. "Give her the knife, Rafe. Put over the pot with some snow in it. The little girl can feed that till there is a lot of water ready. We'll want some for tea."

"Don't want tea," growled Rafe. "I want coffee."

"Oh, stop that, Rafe, or I'll slap you good!" promised Rowdy, his vexation finally boiling over. "I never saw such a boy. Come on here, Sammy. Hold this rabbit by the hind legs and I'll skin it in a jiffy."

With the help of a knife to start the rabbit's hide, Rowdy "plucked"

the bunny very handily. It was drawn and cleaned, too, and soon Rowdy was disjointing it as one would a chicken, using a flat stone for a butcher block.

"It--it looks so much like a kitten," murmured Tess. "Do you suppose it is really good to eat?"

"You wait till you taste it," chuckled Rowdy, who seemed to be a very practical boy indeed. "I'm going to make dumplings with it, too. I have flour and lard. We'll have a fine supper by and by. Then Rafe will feel better."

Rafe merely coughed and grunted. He seemed determined not to be friendly, or even pleasant.

Tess was an experienced potato peeler. She often helped Linda or Mrs.

MacCall at home in Milton. In the matter of the onions she was quite as successful, although she confessed that they made her cry.

"I don't see why onions act so," Dot said, wiping her own eyes. "There ought to be some way of smothering 'em while you take their jackets off. Oh, Tess, that one squirted right into my face!"

"You'll have to take your face away from me, then," said her sister.

"I can't tell where the onion's going to squirt next. They are worse than those clams we got down at Pleasant Cove, about squirting."

"Goodness' sake!" exclaimed Rowdy. "Clams and onions! Never heard them compared before. Did you, Rafe?"

"Don't bother me," growled Rafe, from the bed where he had lain down.

Rowdy kept right on with his cooking. There being plenty of snow melted, he put down the disjointed rabbit with a little water and pepper and salt to simmer. Later he put in the onions and the potatoes. But they all had to simmer slowly for some time before the dumplings were made and put into the covered pot with the rabbit stew.

The children were all very hungry indeed (all save Rafe, the grouch) before Rowdy p.r.o.nounced the stew ready to be eaten. By that time it was late in the evening. It seemed to the younger children as though they had been living in the cave already for a long, long time!

CHAPTER XXIII

ANXIETY

In this valley into which Sammy and the two youngest Corner House girls had coasted without realizing their unfortunate change of direction, the blizzard that had swept down from the north-east upon the wilderness about Red Deer Lodge did not reveal to the castaways its greatest velocity.

The wind was mild in the valley compared to the way it swept across the ridge on which the Birdsalls' home had been built. Already, when Neale O'Neil discovered the absence of the small sled Sammy and Tess and Dot had taken, the storm was becoming threatening in the extreme.

Urged by Mr. Howbridge, Neale ran into the house to make sure that Sammy and the little girls were really gone. n.o.body indoors knew anything about the trio. Instantly anxiety was aroused in the minds of every one.

Hedden, John and Lawrence, as well as Luke Shepard, soon joined in the search. Ike M'Graw of course took the lead. He knew the locality, and he knew the nature of the storm that had now developed after forty-eight hours of threatening.

"No use lookin' for them twins," he had told Mr. Howbridge bluntly.

"If they got away from here this mornin' with grub and a gun, they'll likely be all right for a while. They know where to hole up, it's likely, over this storm. 'Tain't as though they hadn't lived in the woods a good deal, winter and summer. When this storm is over I'll have a look for them twins, and like enough I'll find 'em all right.

They air smart young shavers--'specially little Missie.

"But these here young ones you brought with you--well, they don't know nothin' about the woods. If they started up that road to have a slide, no knowin' where they are now. They've got to be found and brought home. Yes, sir!"

Ruth and the other girls had come running to the back kitchen where the party was making ready for departure. Agnes and Cecile were in tears; but although Ruth felt even more keenly that she had neglected the little folks, and because of that neglect they were lost, she kept her head.

The oldest Kenway hurried matters in the kitchen, and before Ike was ready to start with his crew, she brought two big thermos bottles, one with hot milk and the other with hot coffee.

"That's a good idee, Miss," said the woodsman, b.u.t.toning up his leather coat. "But we'll probably get them youngsters so quick they won't be much cold. Scared, mostly."

All the members of the searching party did not feel so confident as Ike's expression pictured his feelings. And perhaps Ike said this only to help ease the minds of those who remained at the Lodge.

Neale and Luke walked side by side as they set forth against the wind that now blew so hard. The snow sheeted them about so quickly that they were lost to the vision of the girls and Mr. Howbridge before they had gone twenty yards.

The boys were right behind M'Graw. The other men trailed them.

"Don't you fellers stray off the road we're goin' to follow," advised the old woodsman. "This is a humdinger of a storm, and it's goin' to get worse and worse from now on."

"Those poor kids will be buried in it," Luke shouted in Neale's ear.

"We'll dig 'em out, then," returned Neale, confidently. "Don't give up the ship before we've even started."

But there was not much talk after getting into the road up which they knew Sammy and the little girls had started with the sled. In fact, they could not talk. By this time the blizzard was at its height, and it was blowing directly in their faces as they advanced.

Over boot-tops, over knees, even leg-deep where the drifts were, the searchers pressed on. Hedden overtook the backwoodsman and shouted:

"Hadn't we better separate, Mr. M'Graw, and beat the bushes on either side of this road?"

"No. Don't believe it's safe. And I don't think them little shavers separated. They've holed-in together somewhere by this time, or--"

He did not finish his remark, but plowed on. He did not pa.s.s a hummock or snow-covered stump beside the road that he did not kick into and quite thoroughly examine. Every time Neale O'Neil saw one of these drifts he felt suddenly ill. Suppose the little folks should be under that heap of snow? Nor did Luke bear the uncertainty in lighter vein.

There were tears frozen on his cheeks as they pressed on.

The falling snow and sleet, driven by the wind, seemed like a solid wall ahead of them. This buffeted the searchers with tremendous power.

It took all their individual force to stand against the storm.

When they finally reached the summit of the road, where the young people had started the bobsled for the long slide that forenoon, they had found no sign of Sammy and the little girls.

Lawrence, one of the men, was completely exhausted. Ike made him sit down in the shelter of a tree and dosed him with a big draught of the hot coffee.

"Don't want to have to lug you back in our arms, young man," snorted the old woodsman. "You city fellers ain't got much backbone, I allow."

Meanwhile the other members of the searching party examined every brush pile and heap of snow for a circle of twenty yards around the point where Ike and Lawrence waited. Neale and Luke shrieked themselves hoa.r.s.e calling the names of the trio of lost children.