Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/243

Rh Portney, early on the following morning. "Unless I am greatly mistaken we shall have a heavy fall of snow by to-night."

As they did not wish to be canght in a storm, they started on the return to the gulch as rapidly as their loads would permit. They were still in the woods when the first flakes began to fall. With the coming of the snow the wind began to rise, shaking the bare limbs above them savagely and causing a lively tumble of dead branches on every side. Not to become storm-bound, they increased their pace, reaching the lower end of the gulch by six o'clock in the evening. They could hardly see before them, so thickly did the flakes come down, and both considered themselves fortunate in having struck familiar ground. By the time the cabin was reached the snow was six inches deep.

"We thought you'd be snowed under!" cried Randy, as he opened the door to let them in. He had been watching anxiously since the snow began to fall. "It's going to be an awful night."

He was right; it was an awful night—more so than any of them had anticipated. After a hot supper they retired to their bunks to sleep, only to be aroused about midnight by the roar of the wind as it tore through the woods and along the gulch with the force of a hurricane. The snow was coming down "in chunks," as Randy put it, and mingled with it were tree branches, small brush, and dried tundra. In one corner of the