The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound Part 25

"Is Mr. Pertell there?" called Russ, getting down close to the hole he and Paul had made in the ice barrier to enable his voice to carry better. "Is he there, Mr. DeVere?"

"Yes, he's there, and I guess the whole company."

"Has he the camera?"

"That's what he has, Russ."

"Good! Tell him to get a moving picture of the rescue. We can fix up a story to go with it."

"I will, Russ!" exclaimed the actor.

Then, as those within the ice cave waited, they faintly heard other voices outside, and a little later the sound of axes vigorously applied told that the ice which had imprisoned them was being chopped away.

Fast and furiously the rescuers worked. The ice flew about in a sparkling spray as the keen weapons bit deep into it, and the hole grew larger and larger.

Meanwhile Mr. Pertell was operating the moving picture camera, getting view after view of the rescue. There were enough helpers so that his aid was not needed in chopping the ice.

"There she goes!" cried Mr. Macksey, as his axe went through an opening and into the cave. "I've made the hole!" and he capered about like a boy, so delighted was he that he had been the first to bring aid to the imprisoned ones.

"Oh, now we can get out!" cried Ruth, as she saw the head of the axe come through.

"As if there had ever been any doubt of it," laughed Alice. She could laugh now, but even with all her gay spirits, there had been a time, not many minutes back, when it was quite a different story.

The hole once made, was soon enlarged, and then, when it was of sufficient size to enable a person to crawl through, Russ shouted to the rescuers;

"That'll do! Don't chop any more! We can wriggle out."

"Surely, yes," agreed Ruth, as the young moving picture operator looked to her for confirmation. "I'm not a bit fussy," she added. "I've done harder things than crawl on my hands and knees out of an ice cave."

"Don't chop any more!" called Paul, for Russ was leading Ruth to the opening.

"Come ahead!" called Mr. DeVere, and a moment later he was holding his daughter in his arms. Alice soon followed, and she too was clasped tightly.

"Hurray!" cried Mr. Switzer, as Russ and Paul emerged from their strange prison. "Dis is der best sight vot I have yet had in more as a month.

Half a pretzel!" he exclaimed, holding out one of the queer, twisted things. He was never without them since the sled breakdown. He said they were his mascots.

There was a scene of rejoicing, and even the gloomy Mr. Sneed condescended to smile, and looked almost happy.

"There, I guess we can use this film in some sort of a play, if I have to write it myself!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, as he finished grinding away at the camera crank. "I can call it 'Caught in The Ice,' or something like that," he went on, "We can make some preliminary scenes, and some others to follow, and get quite a play out of it."

"I'm glad you thought to bring the camera," said Russ. Even in the stress of what had happened to him and his companions, his instinct as a moving picture operator was ever foremost.

"We had better get them to Elk Lodge, and feed them upon something warm," suggested Mr. Macksey. "I told the wife to have a good meal ready, for I knew they would be chilled through."

"It _was_ pretty cold in there," confessed Alice.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it!" cried Ruth. "It was too terrible."

An examination of the exterior of the ice cave showed that just what the young men surmised had taken place. A large chunk of ice had slid down from above, and had jammed against the opening to the cavern.

Back at Elk Lodge, with warm garments on, the four who had pa.s.sed through such a trying experience soon forgot their troubles. They had to tell all over again just what had happened, and the young men were considered quite the heroes of the hour.

The next day none of the four was any the worse for the experience, save in the matter of a nightmare memory, and that would gradually pa.s.s away.

Feeling that the two girls were not capable of doing any hard work in posing for the camera that day, Mr. Pertell announced another vacation, save that Russ was engaged in making some scenes of snow and ice effects.

Late in the afternoon, when the shadows were lengthening, and the long winter evening was about to close in, Alice, who was out on the side porch, saw Mr. Macksey coming in from the barn. The hunter had an anxious look on his face, and as he walked toward the house he cast looks up at the sky now and then. And Alice heard him murmur:

"I don't like this! I don't for a cent, by hickory!"

"What's the matter now?" she asked, merrily. "Have you seen some of those strange men about again, hunting on your preserves?"

"No, Miss Alice. Not this time," he replied, slowly.

"What is it then?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't like the looks of the weather."

"Do you think we're going to have another blizzard?" and there was a note of alarm in her voice.

"I'm thinking that's what's coming," he made answer. "I never knew the weather to act just this way before except once, and then we had the worst storm I ever remember. That was when I was a boy, and more snow fell in that one storm than in any three winters put together."

"Gracious! I hope that won't happen now!" cried the girl.

"So do I," went on the hunter. "And I'm going to take all precautions.

I'll get the men, and we'll pile the fodder in the barn so if we can't get out to feed the stock they won't starve for a week, anyhow."

"Does it ever happen that you can't get out to the barns?" Alice wanted to know.

"Indeed it does, young lady. When there is a heavy fall of snow, and the wind blows hard, it drifts almost as high as the house. Yes, I think we're in for a storm, and I'm going to get ready for it. Best to be on the safe side."

A little later he and a number of his hired men, as well as some of the picture players, were engaged in looking after the horses and cows.

Great piles of hay and grain were moved from the barns where the fodder was kept in reserve, to the buildings where the stock were stabled.

"How about our rations?" asked Mr. Bunn, who was not of much help in work of this sort. "Have we enough to last through a storm?"

"Well, we've got some," Mr. Macksey admitted. "But I own I would like a little better stock in the Lodge. I counted on some supplies coming in to-day; but they haven't arrived. We'll have to do the best we can."

"What is all the excitement about, Alice?" asked Ruth as she came out to join her sister on the porch.

"A big storm coming, Mr. Macksey says. They're getting ready for it. I want to see it!"

"Oh, Alice. Suppose it should be a blizzard!"

"Well, I want to see it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it; but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically philosophical way.

There was a curious humming in the air, as though someone, a great way off, were moaning in pain. It did not seem to be the wind, and yet it was like the sigh of a breeze. But the gaunt-limbed trees did not bow before this strange blast.

The air, too, had a bite and tingle to it as though it were filled with invisible particles of ice. The clouds were lowering, and as the afternoon wore away there sprang up in the west a black band of vapor, almost like ink.