The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound

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"I hardly think we are going that far," observed Ruth. "But if we do we
shall look for you."

Ruth little realized then how prophetic her words were, nor how she and
Alice would actually "look" for the two girls.

A little later Mabel awakened from a doze, and announced that her head
felt much better. Then, as it would soon be time for her and her sister
to get off, for they were nearing their destination, they went back to
their seats to get their luggage in readiness.

"I like them; don't you?" asked Alice, as she and Ruth rejoined their
friends.

"Indeed I do! They seem very sweet girls. I would like to meet them
again."

"So would I. Perhaps we shall. It would be lovely if we could go to
Florida, after our winter work is over. I'm going to ask Mr. Pertell if
there's any likelihood of our doing so."

But Alice did not get the opportunity just then, as she and Ruth went to
the door to bid their new girl acquaintances good-bye. Then came the
announcement that in a short time Hampton Junction would be reached.

"Better be getting your possessions together," advised Mr. Pertell to
his company. "It is getting late and I don't want to have you travel too
much after dark."

The train came to a stop at Hampton Junction, and from the car emerged
the picture players. Ranged alongside the small building that served as
the depot were several large sleighs, known in that country as "pungs,"
the bodies being filled with clean straw. There were four horses to
each, and the jingle of their bells made music on the wintry air.

"Oh, we're going to have a regular straw ride!" cried Alice, clapping
her hands at the sight of the comfortable-looking sleighs. "Isn't this
jolly, Ruth?"

"I'm sure it will be, yes. Come now, have you everything?"

"Everything, and more too!"

"Daddy, are you all right?" went on Ruth, for she had gotten into the
habit, of late, of looking after her father, who seemed to lean on her
more and more as she grew older.

"Everything, daughter," he replied. "And my throat feels much better. I
think the cold air is doing it good."

"That's fine!" she laughed, happily. "Now I wonder which of these
sleighs is ours?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," said Mr. Pertell. "I want to see the
lodge-keeper. Oh, there he is! Hello, Jake Macksey!" he called to the
sturdy man, in big boots, who was stalking about among the sleds, "is
everything all right for us?"

"Everything, Mr. Pertell," was the hearty answer. "We'll have you out to
Elk Lodge in a jiffy. My wife has got a lot of stuff cooked up, for she
thought you'd be hungry."

"Indeed we are!" grumbled Mr. Sneed.

"But if dere iss stuff cooked I can safe mine pretzels!" chuckled Mr.
Switzer.

The baggage was stowed in one sled, and in the others the members of the
picture company distributed themselves.

"All right?" asked Jake Macksey, who was a veteran guide and hunter, and
in charge of Elk Lodge.

"All ready!" answered Mr. Pertell.

"Drive lively now, boys!" called the hunter. "It's getting late, and
will soon be dark, and the roads aren't any too good."

"Oh my!" groaned Mr. Sneed. "I'm sure something will happen!"

With cracks of the whips, and a jingling of sleighbells, the little
cavalcade started off. The gloom settled slowly down, but Ruth and Alice
helped dispel it by singing lively songs. Over the snow-covered road
they went, now on a comparatively level place, and again down into some
hollow where the drifts were deep. The horses pulled nobly.

They came to a narrow place in the road, where the snow was piled high
on either side. There was room for but one sled at a time.

"I hope we don't meet anyone here," said Mr. Macksey. "If they do we'll
have a hard job passing. G'lang there!" he called to his horses.

They were half-way through the snow defile, when the leading sleigh, in
which rode Ruth and Alice, swerved to one side. There was a crashing
sound, a splintering of wood, and the two forward horses went down in a
heap.

"Whoa! Whoa!" called Mr. Macksey, as he reined in the others.

"What's happened?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Some sort of a breakdown," answered the hunter.

"Serious?" the actor wanted to know, trying to peer ahead in the gloom.

"I can't tell yet," was the answer. "Here, can someone hold the reins
while I get out?" he asked.

"I will," offered Russ, and he held the rear team. The horses who had
fallen had struggled to their feet and were quiet now. But the front
part of the sled seemed to have sagged into the snow.

"I thought so!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey, as he got up after peering under
the vehicle. "No going on like this."

"What happened?" asked Alice.

"One of the forward runners has broken. There must have been a defect in
it I didn't notice."

"Can't we go on?" asked Mr. Sneed.

"Not very well," was the answer. "We've broken down, and unfortunately
we're the leading sleigh. I don't know how to get the others past it."

"Well, I knew something would happen," sighed the human grouch. And he
seemed quite gratified that his prediction had been verified.

CHAPTER IX

THE BLIZZARD

The two other sleds had, as a matter of necessity, come to a halt behind
the first one. The defile in the snow was so narrow that there could be
no passing. Those who had broken the road through the drifts had not
been wise enough to make a wide path, and now the consequences must be
taken.

In fact it would have been a little difficult to make at this point a
path wide enough for two sleighs. The road went between two rocky walls,
and though in the summer, when there was no snow, two vehicles could
squeeze past, in the winter the piling up of the snow on either side
made an almost impassable barrier.

To turn out to right or left was out of the question, for the snow was
so deep that the horses would have floundered helplessly in it.

"Well, what's to be done?" asked Mr. DeVere, as he buttoned his coat
collar up around his neck, and looked at his two daughters.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you all to get out," said Mr. Macksey. "I
want to get a better look at that broken runner, and see if it's
possible to mend it. Bring up a lantern," he called to one of the
drivers of the other sleds. "We'll soon need it."

The moving picture players in the broken-down sled piled out into the
snow. Fortunately they had come prepared for rough weather, and wore
stout shoes. Ruth and Alice, as well as Russ and Paul, laughed at the
plight, and Mr. Switzer, with a chuckle, exclaimed:

"Ha! Maybe mine pretzels vill come in useful after all!"

"That's no joke--maybe they will," observed Mr. Sneed, gloomily. "We may
have to stay here all night."

"Oh, we could walk to Elk Lodge if we had to," put in Mr. Macksey, as he
took the lantern which the other driver brought up.

"It wouldn't be very pleasant," replied Mr. Sneed, "with darkness soon
to be here, and a storm coming up."

"You're right about the storm, I'm afraid," answered the veteran hunter.
"I don't like the looks of the weather a bit. And it sure will be dark
soon. But we'll have a look at this sled," he went on. "Give me a hand
here, Tom and Dick," he called to the other drivers, who had left their
teams.

They managed to prop up the sled, so a better view could be had of the
forward runner. Then the extent of the damage was made plain. One whole
side had given way, and was useless. It could not even be patched up.

"Too bad!" declared the hunter. "Now, if it had only been the rear sled
it wouldn't worry me so.

"For then we could pile the stuff from the back sled into the others,
and go on, even if we were a bit crowded. But with the front sled
blocking this narrow road, I don't see how we are to go on."

"If we could only jump the two rear sleds over this broken one, it would
be all right," said Alice. "It's like one of those moving block puzzles,
where you try to get the squares in a certain order without lifting any
of them out."

"That's it," agreed Mr. Macksey. "But it's no easy matter to jump two
big sleds, and eight horses, over another sled and four horses. I've
played checkers, but never like that," he added.

"But we must do something," insisted Mr. Pertell. "I can't have my
company out like this all night. We must get on to Elk Lodge, somehow."

"Well, I don't see how you're going to do it," responded the hunter.
"You could walk, of course; but you couldn't take your baggage, and you
wouldn't like that."

"Walk? Never! I protest against that!" exclaimed Mr. Bunn.

"'He doth protest too much!'" quoted Paul, in a low voice. "Come on,
Ruth--Alice--shall we walk?"

"I'd like to do it--I'm getting cold standing here," cried Alice,
stamping her feet on the edge of the road. "Will you, Ruth?"

"I'm afraid we'd better not--at least until we talk to daddy, my dear,"
was the low-voiced answer. "Perhaps they can get the sled fixed."

But it did not seem so, for Mr. Macksey, with a puzzled look on his
face, was talking earnestly to the two drivers. The accident had
happened at a most unfortunate time and place.

"We can't even turn around and go back a different road, the way it is,"
said the hunter. "There isn't room to turn, and everybody knows you
can't back a pung very far before getting stuck."

"Then what are we to do?" asked Mr. Pertell.

The hunter did not answer for a minute. Then he said:

"Well, we've got twelve horses here, and I can manage to squeeze the two
rear teams past the stalled sled. Then if you'd like to take chances
riding them to Elk Lodge----"

"Never!" cried Mr. Bunn, with lively recollections of a time he had
ridden a mule at Oak Farm. "I shall stay here forever, first!"

"Well, if you don't want to do that," said Mr. Macksey, and to tell the
truth few members of the company seemed in favor of the idea, "if you
don't want to do that I might ride on ahead and get a spare sleigh I
have at the Lodge. I could get back here before very late, and we'd get
home sooner or later."

"And we would have to stay here?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"I see no help for it. There are plenty of blankets in the sleds, and
you can huddle down in the straw and keep warm. I'll get back as soon as
I can."

There really seemed nothing else to do, and, after talking it over, this
plan was practically decided on. But something happened to change it.
The wind had been rising constantly, and the snow was ever falling
thicker and faster. The players could see only a little way ahead now
from the place where they were stalled.

"This would make a good film, if you could get it," remarked Paul to
Russ.

"Too dark," replied the camera operator. "Do you know, I don't like
this," he went on in a low voice to the young actor.

"You don't like what?" Paul wanted to know.

"The way this weather is acting. I think there's going to be a big
storm, and here we are, stalled out in the open. It will be hard for the
girls and the women, to say nothing of Tommy and Nellie."

"That's what it will, Russ; but what can be done?"

As he spoke there came a sudden fierce rush of wind and a flurry of
snow. It took the breaths of all, and instinctively they turned from it,
for the snow stung their faces. The horses, too, disliked to face the
stinging blast, and shifted their places.

"Get behind such shelter as you can!" cried Mr. Macksey, above the roar
of the storm. "This is a genuine blizzard and it's death to be
unprotected. Get into the sleds, and cover up with the blankets. I'll
have to go for help!"

CHAPTER X

AT ELK LODGE

The warning by Mr. Macksey, no less than the sudden blast of the storm,
struck terror to the hearts of not only the moving picture girls, but to
all the other players. For it was something to which they were not
used--that terrible sweep of wind and blinding snow.

There had been heavy storms in New York, but there the big buildings cut
off the force of the wind, except perhaps in some street canyon. But in
the backwoods, on this stretch of open fields, there was no protection
except that furnished by nature; or, in this case, by the sleds.

For a moment after the veteran hunter had called his warning no one
moved. They all seemed paralyzed by fear. Then Mr. Macksey called again:

"Into shelter, every one of you! What do you mean; standing there in
this storm? Get under the blankets--crouch down at the side of the
sleds. I'll go for help."

"But you--you'll freeze to death--I can't permit you to go!" protested
Mr. Pertell, yelling the words into the other's ear, to make himself
heard above the storm.

"No, I'm used to this sort of thing!" the hunter replied. "I know a
short cut to the lodge, and I can protect myself against the wind. I'll
go."

"I don't like it!" repeated Mr. Pertell, while Mr. Macksey was forcing
him back toward the protecting sled.

Meanwhile the others, now, if never before, feeling the need of shelter,
were struggling through the blinding snow toward the broken sled, from
which they had wandered a short time before while listening to the
attempts made at solving the problem of getting on.

"Isn't this awful!" gasped Ruth, as she clung to Alice.

"Awful? It's just glorious!" cried the young girl. "I wouldn't have
missed it for worlds."

"Oh, Alice, how can you say so? We may all die in this terrible storm!"

"I'm not going to think anything of the kind!" returned the other.
"We'll get out of it, somehow, and laugh at ourselves afterward for
being so silly as to be afraid. Oh, this is great!"

She was really glorying in the fierce outburst of nature. Perhaps she
did not understand, or appreciate, it, for she had never seen anything
like it before, and in this case ignorance might have been akin to
bliss.

But the others, especially the drivers of the two sleds, with anxious
looks on their cold faces, were trying to seek the shelter they so much
needed, and also look to the restless horses. For the animals were now
almost frantic with their desire to get away from that cutting wind and
stinging snow.

"Unhitch 'em all!" roared Mr. Macksey to his men. "Take the horses from
the sleds and get 'em back of as much shelter as you can find. Otherwise
they may bolt and upset something. I'll take old Bald-face, and see if I
can't get some kind of help."

Though what sort of aid he could bring to the picture actors in this
time of storm and stress he hardly knew. But he was not going to give up
without trying.

Ruth and Alice were trying to struggle back through the snow to their
sled, and not making very successful work of it, when they felt arms at
their sides helping them, and Russ and Paul came along.

"Fierce; isn't it!" cried Russ in Ruth's ear.

"Awful, and yet this sister of mine pretends that she likes it."

"I do!" declared Alice. "It's glorious. I can't really believe it's a
blizzard."

"It's the beginning of one, though," Paul assured her. "I hear the
drivers saying so. Their blizzards up here start in with a squall like
this, and soon develop into a bad storm. This isn't at its worst yet."

"Well, I hope I see the worst of it!" said Alice.

"Oh, how can you so tempt fate?" asked Ruth, seriously.

"I'm not tempting fate, but I mean I do like to see a great storm--that
is, if I'm protected, as I am now," and Alice laughed through the
whirling snow into Paul's face, for he had wrapped a fold of his big
ulster about her.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Ruth.

"What's the matter?" asked Russ, anxiously.

"I'm so worried."

"Don't be--yet," he said, reassuringly.

"But we may be snowed in here for a week!"

"Never mind--Mr. Switzer still has his pretzels, I believe."

She could not help laughing, in spite of their distress.

"Oh, poor daddy!" cried Alice, as she reached the sled, and Paul
prepared to help her in, "he is trying to protect his poor throat." Mr.
DeVere wore a heavy coat, the collar of which he had turned up, but even
this seemed little protection, and he was now tying a silk handkerchief
about his collar.

"I have the very thing for him!" cried Paul, taking off a muffler he
wore.

"Oh, but you'll need that!" protested Alice, quickly.

"Not a bit of it--I'm as warm as toast," he answered. "Here you are,
sir!" he called to Mr. DeVere, and when the latter, after a weak
resistance, had accepted it (for he was really suffering from the cold),
Alice thanked Paul with a look that more than repaid him for his
knightly self-sacrifice.

The players were by now in the sled, which, in its damaged condition,
had been let down as nearly level as possible. The blankets were pulled
up over the side, and Mr. Macksey was preparing to unhitch one of the
horses, and set off for help. Then one of the drivers gave a sudden cry,
and came running up to his employer.

"Look!" he shouted. "The wind's shifted. It's blowing right across the
top of this cut now. We'll be protected down here!"

This was indeed true. At the beginning of the squall, which was working
up to a blizzard, the wind had swept up the canyon-like defile between
the hills of earth and snow. But now the direction of the gale had
shifted and was sweeping across the top of the depression. Thus those at
the bottom were, in a measure, protected from the blast.

"By hickory!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey, "that's right. The wind has
changed. Folks, you'll be all right for a while down here, until I can
get help."

"Must you go?" asked Ruth, for now they could talk with more ease.
Indeed, so fiercely was the snow sweeping across the top of the gulch
that little of it fell into the depression.

"Oh, sure, I've got to get help," the hunter said. "You folks can't stay
here all night, even if the wind continues to blow across the top, which
makes it much better."

"Indeed and I will not stay here all night!" protested Mr. Bunn. "I most
strenuously object to it."

"And so do I!" growled Mr. Sneed. "There is no need of it. I might have
known something unpleasant would happen. I had a feeling in my bones
that it would."

"Well, you'll have a freezing feeling in your bones if I don't get
help," observed Mr. Macksey, grimly.

"And I am hungry, too," went on Mr. Sneed. "Why was not food brought
with us in anticipation of this emergency?"

"Haf a pretzel!" offered Mr. Switzer, holding one out.

"Away with the vile thing!" snapped Mr. Sneed.

Mr. Macksey was about to leap on the back of the horse and start off,
when the same driver who had noticed the change in the wind called out:

"I say, Mr. Macksey, I have a plan."

"What is it?"

"Maybe you won't have to go for help, after all. Why can't we take the
forward bob from under the rear sled and put it in place of the broken
one on the first sled? We can easily pass the bob by the second sled
even if the place is narrow."

"By hickory! Why didn't you think of that before?" demanded the hunter.
"Of course we can do it! Lively now, and we'll make the change. Got to
be quick, or it'll be pitch dark."

It would have been very dark long ago had it not been for the snow,
which gave a sort of reflected light.

"Come on!" cried Mr. Macksey. "We'll make the change. I guess I'll have
to ask you folks to get out again," he said to the players in the first
sled. "But it won't be for long. We'll have a good runner in place of
the broken one, and then we can pile into two sleds and get into Elk
Lodge. We'll leave the last sled until to-morrow."

"But what about our baggage?" asked Miss Pennington. "That is in the
rear sled. Can we take that with us?"

"Not all of it," answered the hunter, "but you can crowd in as much as
possible. The rest can wait."

"I want _all_ of mine," declared the former vaudeville actress.

"So do I!" cried Miss Dixon.

"You'll be lucky if you get in out of this storm," said Mr. Pertell
reprovingly, "to say nothing about baggage. Do the best you can, Mr.
Macksey."

"I will. Come now, men, lively!"

It took some little time to make the change, but finally the work was
done.

The broken runner was cast aside, and there were now two good sleds,
one ahead of the other in the snowy defile. As much of the needed
baggage as possible was transferred, and the four horses that had been
on the rear sled were brought up and hitched to the remaining sleds--two
to each so that each conveyance now had six animals attached to it.

"And by hickory!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey, that appearing to be his
favorite expression, "By hickory, we'll need 'em all!"

They were now ready to set forth, and all rather dreaded going out into
the open again, for the defile offered a good shelter from the storm.
But it had to be done, for it was out of the question to stay there all
night.

"Go 'long!" called the hunter, as he shook the long reins of his six
horses, and cracked the whip with a report like a pistol. But the lash
did not fall on the backs of the ready animals. Mr. Macksey never beat
his horses--they were willing enough without that.

Lanterns had been lighted and hung on the sleds, to shed their warning
rays through the storm. They now gleamed fitfully through the
fast-falling snow.

"Are you feeling better now, Daddy?" asked Ruth of her father, as she
glanced anxiously at him.

"Much better, yes. I am afraid I ought to give you back your muffler,
Paul," he added.

"No indeed--please keep it," begged the young actor.

Alice reached beneath the blanket and pressed his hand in appreciation.

"Thanks," he laughed.

"It is I who thank you," she returned, softly.

They were now out in the open road, and the fury of the blast struck
them with all its cruel force.

"Keep covered up!" shouted Mr. Macksey, through the visor of his cap,
which was pulled down over his face. "We'll be there pretty soon."

On through the drifts plunged the straining horses. It was all six of
them could do, pull as they might, to make their way. How cruelly the
wind cut, and how the snow flakes stung! Soft as they really were, the
wind gave them the feeling of pieces of sand and stone.

On through the storm went the delayed party. And then, when each one, in
spite of his or her fortitude, was almost giving up in despair at the
cold and the anxiety Mr. Macksey shouted out;

"Whoa! Here we are! All out for Elk Lodge!"

CHAPTER XI

THROUGH THE ICE

Warming, comforting beams of light shone from a large, low building set
back from the road in a little clearing of the woods. It was too dark to
see more than this--that the structure offered shelter, warmth and
light. Yes, and something else, for there was borne on the wings of the
wind the most delicious odor--the odor of supper.

"Pile out, folks! Pile out!" cried the genial old hunter. "Here we are!
At Elk Lodge! No more storm! No more cold! Get inside to the blaze. I
reckon mother's about given us up; but we're here, and we won't do a
thing to her cooking! Pile out!"

It was an invitation that needed no repetition. It was greeted with a
merry shout, even Mr. Sneed, the grouch, condescending to say:

"Ah, that sounds good!"

"Ha! Den if dere iss food to eat I dinks me dot I don't need to eat my
pretzels. I can safe dem for annoder time!" cried Mr. Switzer, as he
got out.

There was a laugh at this, and it was added to when Mr. Bunn called out
in his deepest tragic voice:

"Ha! Someone has my silk hat!"

For he had persisted in wearing that in the storm, though it was most
uncomfortable.

"It is gone!" he added. "Stolen, mayhap. Has anyone seen it?"

"Probably blew off," said Russ. "We'll find it--when the snow melts!"

Wellington Bunn groaned--again tragically.

"I'll get you another," offered Mr. Pertell, generously.

"Come on, folks! Pile out!" cried Mr. Macksey again.

"I'm so stiff I can hardly move!" declared Ruth.

"So am I," added Alice. "Oh, but it's good to be here!"

"I thought you liked the storm so," observed Ruth.

"I do, but I like supper too, and I think it must be ready."

Out of the sleds climbed the cold and cramped picture players, all
thought of the fierce storm now forgotten.

"Go right in," invited Mr. Macksey. "Supper's waiting!"

"Welcome to Elk Lodge!" called a motherly voice, and Mrs. Macksey
appeared in the open door of the main corridor. "Come right in!"

They were glad enough to do it.

"I don't know any of you, except Russ and Mr. Pertell," she said, for
the manager and his helper had paid a visit to the place sometime before
to make arrangements about using it.

"You'll soon know all of 'em," declared Mr. Pertell with a laugh. "I'll
introduce you," which he quickly did.

"Now then, I expect you'll want to wash up," went on the hunter's wife.
"I'll have the girl show you to your different rooms, and then you can
come down to supper. It's been waiting. What kept you? I'll have to ask
you folks because it's like pulling teeth to get any news out of my
husband. What happened?"

"A breakdown," explained Ruth, who took an instant liking to motherly
Mrs. Macksey. "Oh, we had such a time!"

"Such a glorious time!" supplemented Alice.

"Here's a girl who evidently likes outdoors," laughed the hunter's wife.

"Indeed I do!" cried Alice.

There was some little confusion, getting the players to their rooms,
because of the lateness of the arrival, but finally each one was in his
or her appointed apartment, and trying to get settled. The rooms were
small but comfortable, and the hunters who had built the lodge for
themselves had provided many comforts.

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