Part 17 (1/2)
On and on went the boxsled carrying the Rovers and their chums, deeper and deeper into the woods. Occasionally the road was so narrow that they brushed the snow-laden bushes on one side or the other.
”Hi there, Gif, look out!” cried Randy presently. A bush had been turned aside by those ahead, and now it slipped back, covering Randy's face with loose snow.
”I'm sorry, Randy,” returned Gif. ”But we've got to take this road as it comes. You'll have to watch out, just as the others are doing.”
There was a smoky lantern dangling from the front of the boxsled, but this gave little light. The moon was down beyond the trees, and only the diamond-like stars glittered overhead.
”How much further have we got to go?” questioned Jack presently, after they had pa.s.sed a crossroads and kept to the right, as Jed Wallop had directed.
”I think we have covered about half the distance, Jack,” was the reply of the young driver. ”Still, I'm not sure. You know a boxsled isn't like an auto--it doesn't carry a speedometer.”
”Gee! an auto would have been there and back two or three times since we started,” was Fred's comment.
”Not in this snow,” came from Spouter. ”I think you'd get stuck in some of these deep places.”
”They do use a few cars up here in the winter, but not many,” said Gif.
”It's too uncertain.”
To make the time pa.s.s more quickly, Jack started one of the old school songs, and the others joined him. Then they ended with the well-known Colby Hall cry:
”Who are we?
Can't you see?
Colby Hall!
Dum! Dum! Dum, dum, dum!
Here we come with fife and drum!
Colby! Colby! Colby Hall!”
”I wonder what the neighbors will think if they hear us,” remarked Randy.
”I don't think there are any neighbors very close,” answered Gif. ”There was a house some distance back, but I don't know of any others between here and Cedar Lodge. The other places are beyond the point where we turn off to go down to the bungalow.”
They had now to make several sharp turns, and at these spots the road was unusually rough. One runner of the boxsled went up on some rocks, and for a moment it looked as if the turnout would upset.
”Look out there, Gif!”
”You'll have us in the snow with the sled on top of us!”
”Git along there, Mary and John!” cried the young driver. ”Git along!”
and he cracked his whip, and soon the team had pulled the boxsled from the rocks, and then going became better.
”We ought to be coming to a signboard soon,” declared Gif a few minutes later. ”I remember there used to be one on the road, pointing to a number of camps north of this place.”
In a few minutes they came to the spot he had mentioned, but to his disappointment there was no signboard to be seen.
”Someone must have taken it down, or else it fell of itself,” he remarked.
”Are you quite sure you're on the right road?” questioned Andy.