“Yes,” Jimmy grunted.
“It is quite warm,” Dick said. “It feels very close, and how still it is! The wind has quite gone down. Do you know, Tom, I think it must be morning. There seems a faint sort of light. I can see the stones in the wall behind you.”
“So it must,” Tom assented. “Oh! how stifling it is!” and he raised himself into a sitting position.
“I am afraid we are buried deep in the snow-drift. Put your hand up, Tom; don’t you feel some of these sticks are bent in the middle?”
“Ever so much; there must be a great weight on them. What are we to do, Dick; shall we try and dig a way out?”
“That will be no good,” Dick answered; “not if it is deep; and if it has been snowing all night, there is no saying how deep it may be this morning down in this bottom. This drift-snow is like dust. I remember last winter that Bill Jones and Harry Austin and I tried to make a tunnel in a deep drift, but the snow fell in as fast as we scraped it away. It was just like dry sand.”
“We are all right for warmth,” Tom said; “but it feels quite stifling.”
“Yes, we must try and get some air,” Dick said. “The roof-sticks are close together down at our feet. There were three or four left over when we had finished, so we can take them away without weakening the roof. We might shove one of them up through the snow.”
The sticks were removed carefully, but a quantity of fine snow fell in on their feet. One was then shoved up through the top, but the only effect, when it was removed, was that it was followed by some snow powdering down on their faces.
“Let us tie four of them together,” Dick said. “I have plenty of string in my pocket.”
This was done, fresh sticks being tied to the bottom as the first were shoved up through the snow.
“Now, Tom, help me to work it about a bit, so as to press the snow all round, and make a sort of tube.”
For some time a shower of little particles fell as they worked, but gradually these ceased. Then the stick was cautiously lowered, being untied joint by joint, and looking up the boys gave a shout of pleasure. At the top of the hole, which was some six inches wide at the bottom, was a tiny patch of light.
“We have only just reached the top,” Dick said; “the snow must be near fifteen feet deep.”
Small though the aperture was, it effected a sensible relief. The feeling of oppression ceased; half an hour later the hole was closed up, and they knew that the snow was still falling.
Another length of stick was added, and the daylight again appeared.
The boys slept a good deal; they had no sensation of cold whatever, the heat of their bodies keeping the air at a comfortable temperature. They did not feel so hungry as they expected, but they were very thirsty.
“I shall eat some snow,” Tom said.
“I have heard that that makes you more thirsty,” Dick remarked; “hold some in your hands till it melts, and then sip the water.”
Four days passed; then they found that the snow no longer continued to cover up the hole, and knew that the snow-storm had ceased. The number of sticks required to reach the top was six, and as each of these was about four feet long they knew that, making allowance for the joints, the snow was over twenty feet deep.
Very often the boys talked of home, and wondered what their friends were doing. The first night, when they did not return, it would be hoped that they had stayed at the farm; but somebody would be sure to go over in the morning to see, and when the news arrived that they were missing, there would be a general turn out to find them.
“They must have given up all hope by this time,” Dick said, on the fifth morning, “and must be pretty sure that we are buried in the drift somewhere; but, as all the bottoms will be like this, they will have given up all hopes of finding our bodies till the thaw comes.”
“That may be weeks,” Tom said; “we might as well have died at once.”
“We can live a long time here,” Dick replied confidently. “I remember reading once of a woman who had been buried in the snow being got out alive a tremendous time afterwards. I think it was five weeks, but it might have been more. Hurrah! I have got an idea, Tom.”
“What is that?” Tom asked.
“Look here; we will tie three more sticks – ”
“We can’t spare any more sticks,” Tom said; “the snow is up to our knees already.”
“Ah! but thin sticks will do for this,” Dick said; “we can get some thin sticks out here. We will tie them over the others, and on the top of all we will fasten my red pocket-handkerchief, like a flag; if any one comes down into this bottom they are sure to see it.”
Chapter Two.
The Red Flag
Dick’s plan was soon carried into effect, and the little red flag flew as an appeal for help ten feet above the snow in the lonely valley.
Down in Castleton events had turned out just as the boys had anticipated. The night of the snow-storm there was no sleep for their parents, and at daybreak, next morning, Mr Humphreys and Mr Jackson set out on foot through the storm for the distant farm. They kept to the road, but it took them four hours to reach the farm, for the drifts were many feet deep in the hollows, and they had the greatest difficulty in making their way through.
When, upon their arrival, they found the boys had left before the gale began, their consternation and grief were extreme, and they started at once on their return to Castleton.
Search-parties were immediately organised, and these, in spite of the fury of the storm, searched the hills in all directions.
After the first day, when it was found that they were not at any of the shepherds’ huts scattered among the hills, all hopes of finding them alive ceased. So hopeless was it considered, that few parties went out on the three following days; but on the fifth, when the snow-storm ceased and the sun shone out, numbers of men again tramped the hills in the vague hope of finding some sign of the missing boys; they returned disheartened. The snow was two feet deep everywhere, twenty in many of the hollows.
The next day but few went out, for the general feeling was, that the bodies could not be discovered until the thaw came, and at present it was freezing sharply.
Among those who still kept up the search were several of the boys’ school-fellows. They had not been permitted to join while the snow-storm continued, and were therefore fresh at the work. A party of four kept together, struggling through the deep snow-drifts, climbing up the hills, and enjoying the fun, in spite of the saddening nature of their errand.
On arriving at the brow of a deep valley five miles from home, they agreed that they would go no farther, as it was not likely that the missing boys could have wandered so far from their track. That they had in fact done so was due to a sudden change in the direction of the wind; it had been driving in their faces when they started, and with bent down heads they had struggled against it, unconscious that it was sharply changing its direction.
“Just let us have a look down into the bottom,” one of the boys said; “there may be a shepherd’s hut here.”
Nothing, however, was seen, save a smooth, white surface of snow.
“What is that?” one exclaimed suddenly. “Look, there is a little red flag flying down there – come along.”
The boys rushed down the hill at full speed.
“Don’t all go near the flag,” one said; “you may be treading on their bodies.”
They arrived within ten yards of the flag, in which they soon recognised a red pocket-handkerchief. They were silent now, awestruck at the thought that their companions were lying dead beneath.
“Perhaps it is not theirs,” the eldest of the party said presently. “Anyhow I had better take it off and carry it