CHAPTER XXVIOLD FRIENDS MEET
Down the slope rushed the boys like charging troops bursting into an enemy’s stronghold. Cold and weariness were forgotten. They dashed through drifts; they broke through thickets; they swung themselves over the ruins of an ancient rail-fence. Then they were in a clearing, and hurling themselves at the door of a little house, against which the snow lay banked to the window sills.
Sagging hinges and rusted bolt gave before the attack. The door yielded, and in poured the club like an irresistible tide. Once within the shelter, however, the boys pulled up abruptly, glancing about them with expressions portraying wonder and disappointment.
At a glance it was plain that the house had not been tenanted for a long time. The room in which they found themselves was fairly large, but bare of furnishings, unless a brokenchair, an empty box and a strip of ragged carpet in one corner could be so described. A great fireplace at one end yawned cold and empty. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and such light as sifted into the place came through breaks in the windows rather than through the grimy panes remaining intact. Overhead was a ceiling of rough boards, through whose cracks much snow had sifted, testifying to the condition of the roof; while beneath each window a considerable bank of snow had formed. The walls gave protection, in a measure, from the blasts, but the air had a damp chill more paralyzing than the cutting wind.
Sam was the first to rise to the situation.
“Here, fellows, we’ve got to have a fire!” he sang out. “Herman, take that axe of yours and go for the old rails in the fence. Step and Trojan, go with him, and mind you lug in the driest stuff you can find—if there is anything dry. Shark, help Poke out of his snow-shoes. Now, Orkney”—he turned to the silent Tom—“you and I’ll tackle the fine work. Got any matches?”
Orkney drew a handful from his pocket.“Lucky I was cookee at No. 1,” said he. “Had to look after the fires, you know.”
Sam had torn a board from the old box, and with his knife was ripping off long, curling shavings. He had built them in a neat pyramid on the hearth, when Step and the Trojan staggered in, their arms full of billets. They stood, watching Sam closely, while he made careful choice of their offerings. As he had feared, none of the wood could be called dry, though some of it was not quite so wet as the rest.
Poke and the Shark were beating their arms against their bodies.
“Guess I’ve got a few frosted fingers, all right!” Poke announced ruefully.
“Then don’t get too close to the fire at the start,” Sam counseled. “Now a light, Orkney! Touch her off!”
Tom’s chilled hands threatened to bungle the task, but Sam, for reasons of his own, did not offer to assist. He wished Orkney to feel that he was to be counted a full companion in the adventure.
Orkney, sheltering a flickering match in his palm, knelt by the fireplace. Most cautiouslyhe thrust the match into a crevice in the pile of shavings. A tiny flame shot up. It spread swiftly, the yellow tongues licking the heavier wood stacked above the kindling. Sam sprang to the box, and ripped off pieces of the sides. These he deftly placed on the blazing shavings. Steam and smoke began to rise, and, caught in a down-draft from the long unused chimney, belched into the room in a choking cloud.
Sam again raided the broken box, and Orkney followed his example. One on each side of the hearth, they fed the fire with strips of board, till at last the heavier wood was fairly ignited. The chimney by this time was warming to its work, and drawing fiercely.
The Shark, rubbing his nose in curiously experimental fashion, was surveying Poke intently. Suddenly he bent; picked up a handful of snow from a drift under a window; crossed to Master Green, and without warning fell to scrubbing that young man’s nose. Poke with a howl shrank back.
“What the dickens do you think you’re trying to do?” he demanded indignantly.
The Shark shook his head reprovingly.“That’s it—spoil everything! They say that’s the way to treat a frosted nose, but how am I going to find out if you won’t stand still?”
Poke tenderly caressed the feature under discussion. “What do you want to know for?” he inquired.
“Because I guess my nose is nipped, too,” said the Shark calmly. “So I thought I’d see how the treatment worked.”
Herman Boyd entered, fuel bearing. He brought a report, too, that between the old fence and a fallen tree near by there need be no lack of fire-wood.
Sam cut pieces from the old carpet, and stuffed them into the holes in the windows. Orkney, taking a hint, replaced the door in position.
“Say, you two!” Step called out. “You act as if you thought we were going to make a regular visit.”
“Maybe we are,” Sam told him. “We’d be crazy to go on while the blizzard lasts.”
“Right you are!” Step agreed, but drew a long face.
For a moment the boys listened to the howlof the gale. Then Poke settled himself on the floor near the fire.
“Might as well make yourselves comfortable, fellows,” he remarked. “I’d rather be here than outside, I tell you!”
The Shark followed his example, and so did the Trojan and Step. Orkney and Sam took opposite ends of the semicircle. Poke was smiling a sickly smile.
“I believe in making the best of things,” he announced. “I’m not exactly happy—my ankle hurts and my nose’ll never be the same to me that it was—but I’m not kicking. I’m glad to be here, as I’ve explained. But how long do you expect to linger in this bower, Sam?”
“I think we’ll have to stay all night, anyway.”
“Huh! Any idea where we are?”
“Not an idea.”
“I scouted around a bit,” said Herman. “No sign of a road or other houses.”
Sam nodded. “My notion,” he said, “is that we’ve tumbled on some way-out, back-of-nowhere abandoned farm. It’s been abandoned so many years that the brush has sprungup all about it. Somehow I don’t believe it’s near any village. And now that we’re here—well, Safety First, you know.”
“That’s right!” chimed in the Trojan.
“We’ll be safe enough,” Sam went on. “We’ll lay in plenty of wood, and keep the fire going—and that’s about all we can do.”
Poke laid a hand on his stomach. “That’s well enough,” said he. “Only do I hear anybody suggest dinner or supper? If it’s just the same, I’d like to have ’em both right now.”
The Shark pulled out a big camp doughnut. “The cook gave me this, bless him!” he remarked.
“I ate mine, worse luck!” sighed Herman.
“And I also,” groaned Poke. “It went ages ago.”
“Same here!” declared the Trojan.
Both Sam and Orkney, it proved, had been provident. Each produced a doughnut.
“Share and share alike,” Sam ruled. There was some demur from Poke, but the division was made. In a few moments the last crumb had vanished.
“My! but that’s just an appetizer!” sighed Poke.
It occurred to Sam that diversion was needed. “You firemen, rustle in more wood—a lot of it!” he directed. “Orkney, it looks as if there were a back room. Let’s explore!”
The “back room” proved to be a shed-like extension, in worse condition than the house itself. It yielded, however, a number of mildewed sacks, a wooden bucket, and a battered iron pot, in which, hung from a crane in the fireplace, snow could be melted.
Herman, Step and the Trojan brought in huge armloads of wood. They declared that it would be needed; that the temperature was falling, and that the night would be Arctic.
“Whoof! but it’s awful outside!” Herman avowed. “Bet it’ll hit thirty below!”
This, as the boys knew, was by no means improbable. In Plainville thermometers now and then showed such readings in cold snaps, while even lower marks had been recorded in the hills.
Sam built up the fire with generous hand. Its light as well as warmth was welcome, for the early dusk was closing in. The boys ranged themselves before the hearth. Coats were stripped off; shoes were removed, andtoes were toasted comfortably. After all, the adventurers could count themselves lucky. If they had doubts on the point, they had but to listen to the shriek of the wind and the crackling sound of the snow driving against the windows.
There was little talk. Now and then one or two of the party uneasily shifted position, but the others seemed to be content to sit quietly, gazing thoughtfully at the fire. The Shark especially was absorbed in reflections.
Step, his right hand neighbor and one of the more nervous of the brotherhood, wriggled his long legs, stretched his arms, turned, and peered at the impassive Shark.
“Oh, I say!” he broke out impatiently. “What’s the use of being a graven image? Come to life, Shark!”
Very deliberately the youth addressed gave his attention to Step.
“Huh! I’m very much alive,” he remarked calmly. “I’m doing something with such brains as I happen to have.”
“How? What?”
“I’m thinking.”
“How we’ll get out of this fix?”
The Shark frowned. “That would be wasted effort. There’s nothing we can do till the storm ends. Meanwhile, I entertain myself sensibly.”
“But how?” Step insisted curiously.
An instant the Shark hesitated. “I—I don’t know that you’d be interested.”
“Hang it! I’d be interested in anything.”
“Very well, then,” said the Shark. “Visualize a cube!”
Up went Step’s hands. “Don’t shoot! I’ll come down. Also I’ll bite.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a catch, isn’t it? Go ahead! Spring your joke!”
The Shark looked disgusted. “Joke nothing! See here, Step! You know what a cube is, don’t you? Well, visualizing one means just picturing it in your mind. Remember the formula, don’t you, for A + B, cubed? It’s A cubed + 3A squared, B + 3AB squared + B cubed. Now, take numbers instead of letters—take easy numbers. Call A + B fifteen.”
“Er—er—all right. It’s fifteen. I don’t object.”
“Likewise, we’ll call A ten and B five.Therefore the block representing the cube of A + B will be made up of a cube of A—say, we’ll call the units inches——”
“I’m willing.”
“Then the cube of A,” the Shark went on, “will be a rectangular block, ten inches in each direction. On three of its faces we place what I may term flat blocks, each ten inches square and five inches thick—they’re the A squared B fellows. Then come what we’ll describe as the long blocks, five inches two ways and ten inches the other. Finally, there’s the cube of B, a block five inches high, five inches wide, five inches thick. Putting these together, and picturing each clearly in mind——”
Step’s long arm shot out. His hand fell on the Shark’s shoulder.
“You villain! You traitor! Doing stunts like that—in vacation! You ought to be——”
But the Shark didn’t wait to hear the punishment he deserved. He shook off Step’s hand. He glared at the critic.
“Course I’m not fooling with any kindergarten fifteen!” he cried hotly. “Just mentionedthat to try to get down to your understanding. But I have been working ninety-seven, and I tell you——”
But what the Shark had to tell was to remain his secret. From without the house came sounds, clearly to be distinguished from the tumult of the gale.
Blows were falling upon the door. The boys sprang to their feet, but before they could respond to the summons the door was thrust back, and into the room reeled a man, covered with snow from head to foot. After him hobbled a second man, like the first plainly in sore straits from his battle with the blizzard, but holding fast to the end of a rope, which was passed about the leader’s body and knotted securely below his shoulder blades.
From the club rose a shout, which mingled wonder and welcome. For the man who held the rope was Lon Gates, and the man he drove before him was Peter Groche.