Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/197

 path. The wind was rising. The cloud that packed them close as cotton batting condensed on their clothes in fine drops. Suddenly Peanut, who was blowing on his chilled hands, noticed that the drops were beginning to freeze! The rocks of the path were getting slippery, too. The girl had stumbled once, and strained her ankle. She was paler than ever.

"Oh, why did I wear these high heeled shoes!" she half sobbed.

The words were no sooner out of her mouth (and probably nobody heard them for the shrieking of the wind along the stony ground), when a terrific gust hit the party in the faces, its force knocking their breath out, the hail-like, freezing cloud stinging their faces, the damp cold of it numbing them. The girl fell again, Rob holding her enough to break the fall. Mr. Rogers ahead also fell, but intentionally. He made a trumpet with his hands.

"Lie down and get your breaths!" he shouted. "Then go on in the next lull as far as you can!"

They all got up again when the hurricane blast was over, and, heads down into the teeth of the icy wind, they pushed on, till the next gust made them fall down for shelter.

"Two miles in an hour!" Peanut was thinking. "We aren't going a quarter of a mile an hour at this rate. Will we ever get there?"