Page:Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp.djvu/184

174 the snow and banked it up in a wall all about the platform, which served them for a camp. Then they scraped the fire out from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones would burn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blaze and the rock.

"This is just scrumptious!" declared Heavy. "We shan't freeze now."

"Not if we can keep the fire going," said Helen.

Being warm, they all tried to be cheerful thereafter. They told stories, they sang their school songs, and played guessing games.

Meanwhile, the wind shrieked through the forest above their "hideout," and the snow continued to fall as though it had no intention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark and an early dark it would be on this stormy day.

"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I'd saved my snowshoes."

"What for?" demanded Bell [sic]. "What possible good could they have been to you, silly?"

"They were strung with deer-hide, and I have heard that when castaway sailors get very, very hungry, they always chew their boots. I can't spare my boots," quoth Jennie Stone, trying to joke to the bitter end.