Mother, what can I do after I’ve tended the fires? Do you want that big kettle of soup brought in from the cold room and put on the fire?”

“No, we’ll keep the soup for the boys. I’ve got scalloped oysters in the oven and potatoes roasting, too. They’ll be done by the time we get the milk and butter and things on the table.”

“Oh, Mother,” said Daryl sorrowfully, “and Lance is so fond of scalloped oysters! It seems a pity not to wait for him.”

“Soup will be better for him when he is tired. It’s easy to eat, too, and won’t spoil by waiting. Get to work, girls, and let’s have supper! It’s Christmas Eve, you know!”

In spite of their heavy hearts, the mother put the new life into them, for they remembered she had been talking with her Lord, and they felt her assurance and faith.

Father went out into the cold room and brought things in from the refrigerator before he took his overcoat off, and they could hear him singing in his sweet baritone:

“God’s way is the best way,

God’s way is the right way,

I’ll trust in Him always,

He knoweth the best!”

Chapter 5

After the first dash into the storm, which took his breath and bit at his nerve and lashed his already weary body, Alan Monteith seemed to get his second wind, and with his head bent to the gale to shelter eyes and tender cheeks unused to such blasts, he plodded after his guide with a feeling of courage and purpose. Right here it wasn’t unbearable. The snow was deep, to be sure, and required long strides and high lifting of feet, but it was possible to make a slow progress. After he had gone about a quarter of a mile he felt that they must be almost at their destination and his hopes grew high. He was making it after all.

He had no means of judging time, for he could not see his watch even if he had time to stop and look, but he plodded on hoping that in a few more steps they would be climbing the mountain. But the relentless clothesline fastened around his waist drew him on, and his strength presently began to flag. His limbs ached excruciatingly. He longed to sit down in the snow, if only for an instant, just to relax and take the terrible ache out of his back. But Lance was so far ahead of him that the only way he could attract his attention was by pulling the rope, and he was too proud to halt the march and own that he could not keep up with the young giant ahead who was going on and on and on as if he wore seven-league boots. So he lifted his feet higher and strode on, though it seemed as if each step must be his last, and his breath began to come in quick, short gasps.

He felt ashamed of himself to find that he was so soft. In his college days he had been a lusty football player, a fleet runner, strong of heart and sinew, longwinded and light as a feather on his feet. But he was two years out of college and he hadn’t been practicing stunts just like this in his office since. He hadn’t even had time of late to play golf or get in a game of tennis. He was soft, that was it, and he might as well own it. But he did not intend to give up. Even if it lamed him for life he would keep up his end of this venture, and not hold back.

Then presently he stepped on some obstacle well hidden, lurched, and stumbled to his knees, floundering about to get his balance again and longing just to lie down in the snow and get a rest. He never knew that nerves and muscles could get as sore as this in so short a time.

But Lance was instantly at his side. Lance, who had been plowing and sowing and reaping all summer on the farm, and sawing and splitting wood for the winter; who had been keeping in the pink of condition by long nights of sound sleep, and long days of hard work and hearty eating, and whose young muscles knew not the word weariness. If this journey was hard for Lance he did not falter. He took it only as another hard thing that came in the day’s work, and he was out to win.

Lance stooped and helped Alan to his feet, gave him a cheery word he could not hear, and after an instant they started on again.

It was growing dark now, and Alan would have turned on his flashlight, for there was something exceedingly gruesome in this ghostly walk in the thick whiteness of the storm with the darkness like a pall over all. But Lance, before starting, had told him not to waste his flashlight until it was absolutely necessary, and he would not yield to any weakness. He could not forget that this expedition was his, not Lance’s. He must not in any way hinder the expedition by his own weakness or unpreparedness. He must keep up his end. So he toiled on in the white darkness and wondered, would it never end?

And then they came to a great drift looming out of the gloom, a drift as high as their heads, and extending interminably, it seemed. Lance flashed his light across it, and it seemed an impassable barrier.