The snow thickened as they plodded along, and the rising wind whirled it about in clouds.
“’Twill be a nasty night,” remarked David at the end of another hour.
“I’m glad we turned back when we did,” said David.
For a long time neither spoke. Both were stumbling. The pain in their eyes was intense, and it was only with the greatest effort that they could open them for brief intervals.
“We’ve been goin’ long enough t’ be at th’ tilt,” said David, breaking the silence again.
Again they walked on in silence, each with the fear in his heart that they were lost, but neither voicing it until suddenly David stopped with the exclamation:
“We’re not on th’ mesh at all, Andy! We’re on th’ river!”
And sure enough, turning to the right they discovered the thick willow hedge which lined the river bank.
“Th’ snow is so deep on th’ ice I didn’t know th’ difference,” explained David.
“And I didn’t know th’ difference,” said Andy.
“We missed th’ tilt, and--and I’m afraid we’ll have a hard time, between th’ blindness and th’ storm, findin’ it, Andy,” David said, hesitatingly.
“We’ll--we’ll have a hard time,” agreed Andy.
“But,” said David, with hope in his voice, “if we keeps goin’ down th’ river we’ll come t’ th’ Half-way tilt, _what_ever, and from th’ time we been walkin’ we must have come a long way down th’ river now. If we keeps goin’ we’ll sure come t’ th’ Half-way tilt before dark.”
“We’ll sure come to un if we keeps goin’,” said Andy.
“Aye, plenty o’ grit--and a stout heart,” said Andy.
The wind was steadily increasing, and even now driving the snow down the river valley in suffocating clouds, but the two boys kept bravely on. Once Andy fell, and David helped him up, and a little later he stumbled and fell again, and again David helped him to his feet.
“Aye, ’tis growin’ night,” David admitted reluctantly.
Again and again Andy stumbled and fell, and presently David relieved him of his rifle and carried both his own and Andy’s.
“Keep your grit, Andy,” David cheered, though his own voice betrayed the overpowering weariness that was stealing over him.
“We’ll--keep--our--grit,” murmured Andy in a strange and scarcely intelligible voice.
Whenever Andy fell now, as he did with growing frequency, David found it necessary to exert his utmost strength to lift the boy to his feet. At length the horrible truth forced itself upon David. Half blind and exhausted, they were hopelessly lost in the wilderness, amidst the terrors of a northern blizzard.