cold was intense. It nipped every exposed feature, and their breath hung like hoar-frost before them when they laughed and talked.
During the night something had been done to break out the road. Mr. Jaroth's horses managed to trample the drifts into something like a hubbly path for the broad sled-runners to slip over. They went on, almost always mounting a grade, for four hours before they came to a human habitation.
The driver pointed his whipstock to a black speck before them and higher up the hill which was sharply defined against the background of pure white.
"Bill Kedders' hut," he said to Mr. Gordon. "'Tain't likely he's there this time o' year. Usually he and his wife go to Cliffdale to spend the winter with their married daughter."
"Just the same," cried Bob suddenly, "there's smoke coming out of that chimney. Don't you see it, Uncle Dick?"
"The boy's right!" ejaculated Jaroth, with sudden anxiety. "It can't be that Bill and his woman were caught by this blizzard. He's as knowing about weather signs as an old bear, Bill is. And you can bet every bear in these woods is holed up till spring."
He even urged the plodding horses to a faster pace. The hut, buried in the snow to a point far
