LITMIR.BIZ

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other fellows. If you were home right now I reckon you'd just say that it was a pretty decent sort of a storm; but being cooped up here in the woods makes things look different."

      "How deep do you think she is on the level, Elmer?" asked Lil Artha; "as much as three feet?"

      "Nothing like that," replied the other, quickly; "you mustn't judge by seeing what's piled up there. That's a drift, and the eddies of wind have been piling it up all night long. You see the snow is as dry almost as powder, owing to the cold. It's quit falling in big flakes, and is sifting down now in fine stuff."

      "Yes, and it gets down your back every time, if you don't look out," complained George. "This beats my time all hollow. I wonder how it'll end."

      Elmer purposely made out to mistake the croaker's meaning; he knew that George was thinking of the dismal outlook by which they were confronted, but chose to pretend it was something else that was intended.

      "What, this storm, George?" he said, cheerily; "oh! it'll wind up before a great while. They all have their innings, you know, some longer than others."

      "I should say this was one of the longest, then," George affirmed.

      "But after it does stop we can make up our plans, and start to carry the same out," Elmer continued, knowing that if he kept the minds of his companions employed in some fashion they would not find much time to worry. "I'm going to settle down pretty soon by the fire here, and figure things out again. This time we want to make a sure job of it. I know the wiggly route we've taken to get here, following that little creek, and I've settled it in my mind just which way we ought to go to remedy our blunder."

      "It wasn't so much a mistake as false tips we received, you remember, Elmer," Lil Artha was quick to say.

      "Yes, that skunk told us wrong just to have what he thought would be a silly joke on scouts," Toby added. "Guess he thought we considered ourselves some punkins because we wore khaki suits, and he was mean enough to want to take us down a peg. I'd like to see that same chap again. What I wouldn't do to him wouldn't be worth telling."

      "At any rate he's forced us to have a novel experience," Elmer told them. "Only for his sending us on a false scent we wouldn't have had the chance to know what scouts can do when storm-bound in a snow forest. Some time, when it's all away back in the past, and you can sit and think of it without getting furious, perhaps none of us may feel quite so hard about that young scamp's work."

      "Huh! about that time begin to feel of your shoulders," grunted George, "because I reckon the wings will have started to sprout. If I had my way I'd condemn that rascal to spend a whole week in a snow camp, with only six matches along, and just enough grub to keep him from starving. Half rations and George Robbins don't seem to agree very well."

      "Nothing seems to agree well with you this morning, George," remarked Lil Artha; "I hope it don't turn out to be catching."

      "What do you mean by saying that, Lil Artha?" demanded the other, suspiciously.

      The tall scout shrugged his shoulders as he went on to cautiously explain.

      "Why, you know we were talking about shipwrecked sailors a while back, and how they often had to go on half rations because they carried so little in the boat with them?"

      "Yes, go on," urged George.

      "Once in a while it gets even worse than that," Lil Artha continued, gravely, "and they have to draw lots to see who will be sacrificed, so that the rest of the bunch can live."

      "Aw! come off, and quit that!" cried George; "you're just trying to scare me, and it don't go worth a cent. Nobody is going to starve here in the woods where we can find some sort of meat to eat, even crow, if we have to come to it, or perhaps muskrat. That's a mighty poor joke, Lil Artha, let me tell you."

      "Well, of course I'm hoping myself that things'll never get just that bad," the tall scout went on to say, "but only supposin' they did, and the choice fell on you, I'm wondering if ever afterwards the three of us would have to go around all our lives finding fault with everything. I wouldn't like that, George."

      "But what about yourself?" demanded the other; "you might happen to be the first victim after all, Lil Artha."

      "That makes me smile," he was informed, coolly; "d'ye think now anybody with eyes in his head would be so silly as to pick out a bony scarecrow like me when they could settle on a nice plump chicken of your build?" and he playfully dug his fingers in George's ribs as he said this.

      "Let's change the subject," Toby broke in with; "this always talking of eatin' seems to jar on my nerves. It sets me to thinkin', and that empty larder stares me in the face. Something's got to be done about it."

      "Sure it has," echoed Lil Artha, eying George closer so that the other squirmed uneasily, and edged further away from him.

      "If we stay right where we are nothing will come to us, will there, Elmer?" Toby pursued.

      "If you mean anything in the way of game we could hardly expect it," replied the scout master. "The fellow who generally gets there is the one who goes out and finds what he wants, and doesn't hang around home waiting for something to turn up. That's what wideawake scouts believe in."

      "Hurrah! that's the ticket! And when can we make a start?" demanded Toby.

      "If there's any sign of the storm letting up by noon, we'll clear out and take our chances of finding Uncle Caleb's shack before night-time," he was told.

      "And as the snow's so deep," Toby rattled on, "what's to hinder me from trying my bully snow-shoes?"

      "Nothing that I know of," Elmer remarked; "only I'm afraid you won't find the going as easy as you expect."

      "I won't, eh? What's the reason?" asked Toby, who always wanted to be shown.

      "You're a new beginner, in the first place, and a knowledge of how to walk on snow-shoes is something that's got to be gained by experience. I've been on them up in Canada; and they had to dig me out lots of times before I learned how to stand straight. If once you slip it's good-bye to you. Down your head goes, and you can't get up alone because of the clumsy big shoes. They always carry a long stick to keep from taking these headers, especially when going it alone."

      "Anything else?" asked the aspiring one, as he took up the pair of splendid snow-shoes Uncle Caleb had sent him, and made as if to secure his toe in place with the thong intended for that purpose.

      "Yes, there's another thing that will make it doubly hard," Elmer informed him. "Dry snow like this is the toughest kind to walk over. When hunters go after deer or moose on snow-shoes they always pick a time after a thaw, when a return of the cold has frozen the wet surface of the deep snow. Over this thin ice they can run three times as fast as the poor deer, which breaks through with every jump, and flounders almost helplessly."

      "That sounds almost like plain murder, do you know," Lil Artha vehemently declared, frowning at the idea.

      "Well, if you were hungry, and that was the only way to get near a venison mebbe you wouldn't feel so particular," George told him. "I know right now that I wish a splendid buck was doing some of that same floundering near us, and Elmer had a chance to settle his hash for him. It'd sure do me a heap of good just to know we had enough grub for a week, and then some."

      "That's a forbidden subject, George," remonstrated Elmer, who wanted to get the minds of his chums directed in more pleasant channels; "let's all get together and compare notes about direction. I said I had a plan, but then I might be off my base, and some of you could correct me. Four heads are better than one all the time."

      His scheme succeeded, for presently he had managed to get them deeply interested in the subject of location, so that one after another put forward some plan.

      It was about all they could do, under the circumstances, that and keeping the fire burning. Even George so far forgot his troubles as to suggest several things that were well weighed before being rejected.

      As it turned out, after the conference, Elmer had changed his figures a little, and the latest plan was to head a point south of northwest when they started forth in hopes of finding shelter from the storm.

      No one knew the grim necessity

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