Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/244

222 cabin the wind had found a crack about six inches long and less than a sixteenth of an inch wide, and through this crack the snow had sifted over the entire floor.

"Jerusalem! the roof is coming down! " cried Earl, when they had been up a few minutes, and while his uncle was stuffing a piece of cloth in the crack mentioned. There was a great noise overhead as the hurricane tore away the top joint of the stovepipe. Through the opening poured a lot of snow, which, falling on the hot stove, sent up a cloud of steam. To stop the snow from coming in, Foster Portney climbed up on the top of the table and nailed a bit of a board over the hole.

"We can't have that stovepipe up there, that's certain," he said. "We'll have to stick it out of the side window. It won't look very elegant, but I reckon we're not keeping house on looks up here." And by their united efforts the stove was swung around in front of the little window, and the upper end of what was left of the pipe was twisted around and pointed outside, after one of the small window panes had been taken out. Around the pipe Mr. Portney fitted a square sheet of tin, obtained from an empty tomato can. Then the floor was cleared of snow and the fire started up afresh.

The hurricane, or blizzard, lasted until six o'clock in the morning, and during that time nobody thought of