The Corner House Girls Snowbound

“Oh, Je-ru-sa-lem! A real rabbit?” gasped Sammy Pinkney.

“A poor little bunny?” murmured Tess, her tender heart at once disturbed at the thought of the trapped animal.

“Huh! If we are snowed up in that cave for a week or so,” said the boy called Rowdy, “you’ll be mighty glad I caught this rabbit.”

He had lifted the door and thrust in his left hand to seize the animal.

“Oh! Oh!” squealed Dot. “Won’t it bite you?”

“It doesn’t bite with its hind legs,” said Rowdy with scorn. “Ah! I got him.”

He drew forth the rabbit, kicking and squirming. The little mouse-like cry the poor beast made sounded very pitiful to Tess. She murmured:

“Oh, don’t hurt him!”

“Je-ru-sa-lem!” exclaimed Sammy to Rowdy. “Ain’t girls the worst ever?”

“Huh!” said the strange boy, suddenly glaring at Sammy Pinkney, “what do you know about girls?”

He was a dark boy, with ragged black hair that had evidently been sheared off roughly by an amateur barber. He was dressed warmly and in good clothes. He wore leggings that came up to his hips. He was bigger, and must have been older than Sammy.

He stood up now, with the kicking rabbit held by the hind legs. The trapped animal was fat and was of good size.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Dot. “He’ll get away from you.”

“Like fun he will.”

“How are you going to kill him?” Sammy, the practical, asked.

“Break its neck,” was the prompt reply.

“Oh! How awful!” gasped Tess. “Won’t it hurt him?”

“It won’t know anything about it,” said Rowdy.

He was already holding the rabbit away from him almost at arm’s length and poised his right hand, edge out, for the blow that was to finish the creature. Sharp and quick was the blow, the outer edge of the boy’s hand striking across the back of the rabbit’s neck just at the base of the brain. The vertebra was snapped in this way and the creature instantly killed – a merciful and sudden death. The rabbit kicked but once, and then was still.

“Oh! Oh!” murmured Tess.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Rowdy. “Ike M’Graw showed me how to do that.”

“Oh!” cried Dot. “We know Mr. Ike M’Graw – so we do.”

“How did you come to know him?” demanded Rowdy, quickly and suspiciously, it seemed. “He isn’t at home now.”

“Yes, he is,” said Sammy. “He was up at Red Deer Lodge last night and he was there again this morning.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Rowdy, standing and holding the rabbit as though the information gave him considerable mental disturbance. “I – I thought he’d gone away for good.”

Then he turned suddenly and plunged into the drifting snow. “Come on!” he exclaimed again. “This snow is drifting awfully.”

Sammy drove the little girls ahead of him again. “Aw, go on!” he muttered. “He’s all right. He’s got some kind of a hide-out.”

“I don’t believe I like that Rowdy,” said Tess softly. “He – he’s real cruel. All boys are, I s’pose.”

“They have to be,” returned Sammy.

“Why?” demanded Tess, in wonder.

“’Cause girls are such softies,” declared the impolite Sammy.

They plunged ahead, wading far above their waists now. Behind the trees the hillside rose abruptly. It towered so above their heads in the snow that the children were almost scared. Suppose that hill of snow should tumble right down on top of them!

“Goodness!” exclaimed Tess, with some exasperation. “Where is your old cave?”

“Come on,” said Rowdy, patiently. “It’s here somewhere. But the old snow – Ye-e – yi, yi!” he suddenly yelled.

Faintly there came an answering voice – half smothered, wholly eerie sounding.

“Oh! Who’s that?” demanded Sammy.

“Him,” said Rowdy shortly.

“Then don’t you live alone?” Tess demanded.

“I have my brother with me,” said Rowdy, plunging on to the right.

The snow beat into their faces and eyes, almost blinding them and wholly stopping their chatter. Above their heads the huge trees rocked, limbs writhing as though they were alive and in pain. And from these writhing limbs the snow was shaken down in avalanches.

One great blob of snow fell square on Sammy, trudging on behind the procession, and he went down with a howl like a wolf, buried to his ears.

“Oh, Sammy! Sammy!” shrieked Tess, above the wind. “Are you hurt?”

“I – I’m smothered!” groaned the boy, struggling to get out of the heap of snow. “Hey, you Rowdy! Get us out of this, or we’ll be buried and lost.”

“Come on!” sang out the bigger boy from up ahead. “O-ee! Rafe!” he shouted.

A figure appeared before them – the figure of a boy not much bigger than Rowdy.

“What have you there?” a hoarse voice demanded.

“A rabbit.”

“I mean who are those behind you?” and the hoarse voice was very tart now.

“A couple of girls and a boy,” said Rowdy. “I picked ’em up back there by the trap.”

“Well! But we don’t keep a hotel,” said the second boy.

“Hush!” commanded Rowdy. “Where are your manners? And they come from the Lodge,” he added.

“How are we going to feed so many people?” was the rather selfish demand of the second boy from the cave.

“Mercy! you’re a regular pig, Rafe,” exclaimed Rowdy. “Go on. Take this rabbit. I’ll help the little girl. She’s almost done for.”

Dot Kenway really was breathless and almost exhausted. She was glad to be taken in the strong arms of Rowdy. He staggered along behind the one called Rafe, and so came to an opening behind a bowlder which seemed to have been rolled by nature against the hillside.

The hole was sheltered from the direct effect of the wind that was drifting the snow in a huge mound against the bowlder. Rafe, with the rabbit, dived first into the hole. Rowdy followed, with Dot in his arms.

“Oh! Oh!” cried the littlest girl with delight. “Here’s a fire.”

“Isn’t that splendid?” demanded Tess, who came next and saw the blaze at the back of the cave, between two stones. “Why! what a nice cave you’ve got here.”

The fire lit up the cave, for it was only about a dozen feet square. Only, it was not really square, being of a circular shape at the back. The smoke from the fire rose straight up and disappeared through a hole in the low roof through which there must have been considerable draught.

Of course, there was a strong smell of wood smoke in the cave; but not enough smoke to make one’s eyes smart. There were some old blankets and rugs on the floor for carpet. Against one side wall was a great heap of balsam boughs, over which were flung robes.

When Sammy came staggering in with the sled he fairly shouted his approval of the cave.

“Je-ru-sa-lem! what a jim-dandy place. Say! I bet Neale O’Neil would like to see this.”

“Well, you needn’t be bringing anybody here and showing it. This is our own particular hideout – Rowdy’s and mine. So now,” observed Rafe, who seemed to be less friendly than his brother.

“Oh, hush,” pleaded the latter. “Do be hospitable, Rafe. Don’t you know these kids are our guests?”

“‘Guests!’” snorted the other.

“Yes, they are.”

“Oh, please don’t quarrel about us,” urged Tess Kenway gently. “We’ll go right away as soon as it stops snowing, and we’ll never tell anybody about this cave if you don’t want us to.”

“Don’t mind him,” said Rowdy. “He’s got a cold and a grouch. Come on, Rafe; help me pluck this rabbit.”

“Oh, I’ll do that!” cried the red-faced Sammy. “Let me!”

While the little girls were glad to sit before the fire on the blankets, he wished to make himself useful. Besides, to help skin a real rabbit was a height of delight to which Sammy Pinkney had never before risen.

“All right,” said Rowdy. “You get the potatoes and onions ready, Rafe. We have salt and pepper and we can have a nice rabbit stew.”

“Just fry it,” recommended the other cave dweller. “That’s less trouble.”

“You do as I say!” exclaimed Rowdy, sternly. “There are five of us instead of two to eat, and we’ve got to make this rabbit go a long way.”

“Well, who brought them in? I didn’t,” said Rafe, angrily. “You knew we didn’t have any too much to eat.”

“You are a nice one!” began Rowdy, when Tess broke in with:

“I’m awful sorry we came if we are going to make trouble. We can go back under that tree – can’t we, Sammy?”

“I’m not going back there,” Dot said stubbornly. “There’s no fire there. If this other boy doesn’t like us because we are girls, can’t he go out and live under the tree himself?”

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 pronounced 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. Nobody 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, buttoning 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 pass 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 hoarse calling the names of the trio of lost children.

“Do you suppose any wild animal has attacked them, or frightened them, Mr. M’Graw?” Hedden asked.

“Lynx and them is holed up, all right,” declared the backwoodsman with conviction. “Nothing would bother them while this storm lasts. But I declare I don’t see why we ain’t found ’em,” he added, shaking his head. “Not if they come this way.”

“I don’t think they would have gone beyond this spot, do you?” Neale asked. “Here’s the top of the hill. They must have started for this place with the sled.”

“’Twould seem so,” agreed Ike M’Graw.

“I doubt if they could have walked so far from the house,” said Luke.

“’Twasn’t snowin’ like this when they was on the way. But if they come up here and slid down again, why didn’t we find ’em on our way up? Beats me!”

“Perhaps we should have brought Tom Jonah with us,” Neale observed. “He might have nosed them out.”

“The old dog couldn’t scurcely git through this here snow,” said M’Graw. “I don’t guess he can help us much till the storm’s over. But let’s go back. Them young ones must have turned out o’ this road somewheres. Stands to reason the snow scared ’em and they started back. They must have got out o’ this woodroad, and then – ”

He slowly shook his head. His anxiety was shared by all. Wherever the children had gone, they were surely overtaken by the storm. If they had found some shelter they might be safely “holed up” till the storm stopped. But if not, neither Ike M’Graw nor the others knew where to look for them.

And the blizzard was now sweeping so desperately across the ridge that the sturdiest of the party could scarcely stand against it. Had it not been at their backs as they headed for Red Deer Lodge again, it is doubtful if they would have got to their destination alive.

The last few hundred yards the party made by holding hands and pulling each other through the drifts. It was a tremendous task, and even M’Graw was blown when Red Deer Lodge was reached.

Lawrence was the worst off of them all. Neale and Luke literally dragged him through the storm from the sheds to the rear door of the Lodge. He would probably have died in the drifts had he been alone.

The girls and Mrs. MacCall, as well as Mr. Howbridge, were awaiting the return of the searchers with the utmost anxiety. Not only were they disturbed over the loss of the three children, but the possibility of the men themselves not returning had grown big in their minds. The rapidity with which the snow was gathering and the fierceness of the gale threatened disaster to the searchers.

When M’Graw fell against the storm door at the rear of the house and burst it open, everybody within hearing came running to the back kitchen. When Ruth saw that they did not bring with them the two little girls and Sammy, she broke down utterly.

Her despair was pitiful. She had held in bravely until now. To think that they had come up here to Red Deer Lodge for a jolly vacation only to have this tragedy occur!

For that it was tragedy even Ike M’Graw now admitted. There was no knowing when the storm would cease. If the children had not been providentially sheltered before the gale reached this high point, it was scarcely possible that they would be found alive after the blizzard was over.

At this hour no human being could live for long exposed to the storm which gripped the whole countryside.

There was anxiety in the cave in the valley as well as at Red Deer Lodge about this same hour. But it must be confessed that the children who had taken refuge in the cave were mostly anxious about that rabbit stew!

Was there going to be enough to go around? And had Rowdy made the dumplings all right and seasoned the stew so that it would be palatable?

“Why, you’re all sitting around here and sniffing at that stew every time I lift the pot cover like hungry dogs,” declared Rowdy. “I guess if it doesn’t turn out right, you’ll eat me.”

“Oh, no,” said Dot. “We wouldn’t like to do that, for we aren’t cannon balls.”

“You aren’t what?” cried the boy, amazed.

“Oh, dear, Dot! Why will you get so mixed up in your words?” Tess wailed. “She doesn’t mean ‘cannon balls,’ Rowdy; she means cannibals. And we aren’t. It is bad enough to have to eat rabbit when it looks so much like a cat.”

This very much amused Rowdy and Sammy Pinkney; but Rafe, the grouchy brother, would not be even friendly enough to laugh at the smallest Corner House girl.

“I don’t know what’s got into him,” said Rowdy. “He never was this way before.”

Rafe lay on the bed of balsam branches, and when his brother tried to stir him up he growled and said: “Let me alone!” But when the stew was done he was ready for his share.

The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were primitive. There were a few odd plates and dishes. But knives and forks were not plentiful, and the tea had to be drunk out of tin cups, and there were only three of them.

There was condensed milk for the tea; and besides the dumplings which Rowdy had made, there were crackers and some cold cornbread left from a previous meal.

Rowdy seemed to be a pretty good cook for a boy of his age. And he was just as handy with dishes and in housekeeping matters as a girl.

The visitors praised his rabbit stew. They really had to do that because they ate so much of it. Rafe grumbled that they took more than their share.

“I’d like to know what’s got into you!” Rowdy said to his brother in great disgust. “You are just as mean as poison ivy – so there!”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are. And what are you scratching that way for?”

“Because my chest itches. What does anybody scratch for?” growled Rafe.

After eating, Rafe rolled up in a robe and went to sleep at one end of the bed. The others helped Rowdy clean up; and, as he said, “just to pay Rafe off for being so mean,” they had dessert which Rafe had no part in. Rowdy produced a can of pears and they opened and ate them all!

“Je-ru-sa-lem!” ejaculated Sammy, when this was finished, “ain’t it fun living in a cave? I’d rather be here than up to that Red Deer Lodge place. Hadn’t you, Tess?”

“No-o,” admitted the honest but polite little girl. “I can’t say just that. But I think Rowdy’s cave is very nice, and we are having a very nice time here.”

Dot frankly yawned. She had been doing that, off and on, all through supper.

“I’m afraid there won’t be anybody to put my Alice-doll to bed tonight,” she said. “And I haven’t any nightgown with me. Why, Tess! what shall we do?”

“I guess you wouldn’t want to take off your clothes here. It isn’t warm enough,” said Rowdy.

“But can’t we say our prayers?” murmured the startled Dot. “Of course, Tess and I spent the night once right out under a tree – didn’t we, Tessie? Last summer, you know, when we went on that tour in our automobile. But we said our prayers first.”

“I guess we’d all better say our prayers and go to bed,” said Rowdy. “This is a pretty big storm, and maybe it won’t stop snowing for ever so long. The more we sleep, the less we’ll know about it.”

Therefore, a little later, the four joined the already slumbering Rafe upon the heaped up branches; wrapping themselves as best they could in the torn robes and pieces of carpet.

It was not a very comfortable bed or very nice bedding; but they were all too weary to criticize the shortcomings of Rowdy’s cave. At least, it was shelter from the storm.

CHAPTER XXIV – RAFE IS CROSS

Sammy Pinkney awoke to hear barking. But it was not Tom Jonah, as he had dreamed it was. He was chilly, too, and when his eyes got used to the semi-darkness of the cave he was sleeping in, Sammy discovered that Rafe had deliberately removed the share of the bedclothes that had been over Sammy and spread them over himself.

“Aw, say!” muttered Sammy. “Ain’t he fresh?”

Then Rafe barked again.

“He certainly has one fierce cold!” muttered Sammy. “I ain’t got the heart to start nothing on him.”