It won’t be long before the potatoes are done, and the boys will be hungry when they get here!”

Daryl cast a frightened look at the clock. Three minutes to twelve, and Christmas morning would be here. Six hours the two had been out in the storm! It didn’t seem as if there was a particle of hope that they could ever get home alive! Lost in the snow on the mountain! How could Mother bear it? How would they dare to tell her? She with her faith so bright and strong! Her coffee was sending out its savory odor. And there was a sweet homely smell of roasting potatoes, with their skins all brown and crusty!

The girls put the finished stockings in a pile and gave one look at each other, and then at the clock again. They had white lips and wide sorrowful eyes!

It was just at that moment that two figures, one half bearing the other, staggered, almost fell, struggled painfully on again into the area where the Devereaux gate had formerly been located, and two wavering flashlights searched the white impenetrable gloom.

The girls paused in the living room doorway, instinctively catching each other’s hands as they heard the clock give the preliminary whirr to striking the midnight hour, and then because it seemed something crucial, they stood still and watched it strike. One! Two! Three! So slowly and deliberately. It seemed to be striking on their hearts! It seemed like the tolling of a death knell instead of the ushering in of a joyous Christmas morning! They would never forget it. Nine! Ten! Eleven! Tw-el-ve!

Its last whirr blended with the roaring of the wind that seemed like the groping of a desperate hand outside beating and clutching for the doorknob. Then suddenly the side door of the sitting room burst open, and the two figures slipped, struggled, and fell headlong into the room, bearing the whole outside storm with them, cold and snow and bitterness! A glad wicked gale mocked them saying, “Here I’ve come back again! You thought you could keep me out, but I’m here!” And it swirled around the room, and hissed its hate against the hot oven door in sharp stinging snow; it slapped Mother Devereaux in the face, taking away her breath, and flung upon the two girls in the doorway clutching hands and looking with frightened eyes at the two who had fallen on the floor. Then it whirled into the living room and raced with wicked glee into every cranny, billowing out the delicate muslin curtains at the windows and the heavy draperies at the doors, swaying the crystal prisms on the candle sconces over the mantel, and tilting the Christmas tree irreverently, then rushed around again into the kitchen wildly. Until the strong old arms of Father Devereaux drew the two men inside and with a mighty effort closed and bolted the sturdy door.

Then out from beneath the heap of snow-covered arms and legs and heads a mittened hand feebly waved a lit flashlight until it slipped down rolling crazily to loll on the floor, and a voice, weak but still undaunted, cried huskily, “We made it, folks! MER-RY CHRIST-MUS!”

“Yes,” said Mother Devereaux as she rushed to kneel at her boy’s side, “I knew you would! I’ve got nice hot barley soup and coffee all ready for you.”

“Good work!” said Lance feebly, and then faded right out of the picture.

Chapter 7

They lifted the tall figure of the stranger and put him in Father’s big chair, and they laid Lance on the dining room couch, and then hurried to minister to them. For having arrived the two seemed incapable of anything else. The heat of the room in their benumbed condition seemed to take away further ability to move or speak. Once Alan roused to explain in a weary tone, “He fell and hurt his ankle….” But his voice trailed off vaguely again as if he had suddenly fallen asleep in the middle of the thought.

Father Devereaux brought pails and a tub of snow from the sheltered back porch. The girls rushed for warm blankets and aromatic ammonia, and then all hands went to work pulling off the frozen garments from the numb bodies, rubbing frosted cheeks and feet and hands with snow, applying restoratives at Mother Devereaux’s directions, bringing warm woolen garments, until presently the two pilgrims were thawed out and able to talk.

They told their story briefly between sips of hot soup. They were being fed by the two girls while Mother hurried the meal on the table that had been prepared just in the nick of time.

“You see,” said Lance from his couch where his father was still rubbing his stiff hands and feet, “they loaned us some snowshoes and we got tangled with those when it came to the trail down the mountain. When we tried to kick them off and go on without them we found they were frozen to us, at least we couldn’t undo the buckles with ice on the fingers of our gloves, so we decided to skirt the woods and come down by way of the fields, but that didn’t work either. Our guide rope caught on the last tree we had fastened it to and broke. We couldn’t find the trail so we somehow lost our bearings and went wandering over the country until we reached a creek. It didn’t seem to be our creek, for it certainly didn’t look familiar to me, and I didn’t know whether we were going up or down it, so that didn’t help much. Once we saw a bright light high up on the mountain but couldn’t tell whether it was the house we’d come from or another away across the valley. So there we were. How we came home or whether we are really home now or not we don’t know. It may turn out to be just a dream, and maybe we are really still lying in a snowbank with the sleet in our faces, but if it is, it’s a mighty nice dream!”

“Yes,” said Mother Devereaux gently, “I thought it would be about like that, and I was praying for you. I asked God to guide you both home safely.”

“Yes,” said Lance happily. “I knew that! I told Alan once when we got close enough together to hear each other and were resting a minute before we went on—that was after I turned my ankle and couldn’t walk so well and Alan had to sort of carry me—I said, ‘Don’t give up, pard! Mother’s down in the corner of the dining room this minute praying us through. We’ll get there yet!’”

Alan looked up with a sudden light in his eyes.

“I appreciate those prayers, Mrs. Devereaux,” he said. “I’m sure we couldn’t have got through alone.”

Mother Devereaux smiled lovingly at the stranger and patted his hand as she went by with the dish of crackly roasted potatoes.

“Yes, but Mother, you don’t know the half yet,” said Lance, suddenly eager in his enthusiasm. “You don’t know what a man I had with me.