improved three-fold."
"Well," said George, drily, as he stared very hard at his now empty platter, "I'm doing my level best to force myself to believe this pannikin is heaped high with beefsteak and fried onions and fried potatoes; now if I've got a third of a chance to get what I'm wishing for, even that much would fill a long-felt want. But say, none of you see any grub coming along on my dish do you? Well, wishing don't seem to do any good. I'm as hungry as ever, too, worse luck. Even speaking of such splendid eatings seems to make my mouth water."
"Then stop it!" cried Toby; "think all you want to, but the rest of us have feelings as well as you, and it's cruelty to animals to even mention such things as – "
"Hold on there! don't you aggravate things by mentioning that list again, or I'll proceed to roll you out of this hole into the snow drifts!" threatened Lil Artha, pretending to make a threatening gesture, while Toby threw up both hands in token of abject surrender.
"I'm dumb as an oyster, Lil Artha," he protested. "I haven't got another word to say; but if there's got to be any ejecting done let's grab the right party, and see that he gets his full dose."
George had meanwhile managed to pick up a couple of extra crackers, and having his mouth full did not make any reply. Lil Artha deftly snatched the box away from him, and closing it, calmly placed it out of reach.
"No hogging, now, George," he went on to say; "share and share alike is the rule we've got to go by from now on. If there's any hungry feeling swinging around, it's going to be no one-sided game. Others can feel empty as well as the Robbins family pet. But let's hope that before another night we'll all be sitting around a table in Uncle Caleb's shack, as warm and cozy as four bugs in a rug."
The mere thought of having to spend a second night amidst those enormous snow drifts gave the boys an unpleasant feeling. They turned and looked out from under their rude shelter. The fire itself was cheery; but beyond this lay the piles of snow, the grim trees with their white arms extended like monuments in the burying ground at Hickory Ridge, and with the air full of still rapidly falling flakes, as though the weather man up aloft had an unlimited supply of white geese to pluck on this special occasion.
For a short time no one said a word. They were all busy with thoughts, perhaps connected with their happy homes, so far removed; or it might be trying to picture the cheery scene Lil Artha had spoken of when he mentioned that cabin of Uncle Caleb, the man of science, and the small animal photographer and trapper.
CHAPTER IV
SNOW-BOUND
"I don't believe there ever was such a furious snow-storm as this before!" Toby remarked, after a while, with a little pensive sigh, as though he had already begun to repent having conceived that brilliant idea, in the following out of which they had fallen into their present serious predicament.
"Oh! that's because the wish is father to the thought, Toby," Elmer told him. "We all like to stand up ahead of the 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
