"We sha'n't be able to see the length of a fishing-rod before us soon,"

he said. "Now, I propose steering due south till we strike the old turf dike[1] that leads across the mountains. By following this downwards we will be guided straight to the pine-wood rookery behind our house."

[] Dike (_Scottice_), a low fence of stone or turf.

They commenced to struggle on now in earnest--I might almost say for dear life's sake--for wilder and wilder blew the blizzard, increasing in force every minute, and thicker fell the snow. But I was wrong in saying it fell, for it was carried horizontally along on the wings of the wind. Not a flake would lie on the hills or bare slopes, but every dingle and dell and gully, and every rock-side facing westward, was filled and blocked.

Duncan held Flora firmly by the hand, for if she got out of sight in this choking drift, even for a few seconds, her fate would, in all probability, be that of sweet Lucy Gray--she might ne'er be seen alive again.

Frank and Conal were arm-in-arm, their heads well down as they struggled on and on.

"Let us keep well together, boys," cried Duncan, as he looked at his little compa.s.s once again. "Cheerily does it, as sailors say."

Now and then they stopped for breath when they came to a clump of pines.

Here the noise of the wind overhead was terrific. At its lightest it was precisely like the roar of a great waterfall. But ever and anon it would come on in furious squalls, that had in them all the force of a hurricane, which swept the tree-tops straight out to one side and bent their giant stems as if they had been but fishing-rods. At every gust such as this the flakes were broken into ice-dust, with a suffocating snow fog that, had they not buried their faces in their plaids, would have choked the party one and all.

Many of these pines were carried away by the board, snapped near to the ground, and hurled earthwards with the force of the blast.

Long before they reached the fence of turf, called in Scotland, as I have said, a dike, Flora was completely exhausted, and had to submit to be carried on Duncan's st.u.r.dy back.

Frank was but little better off, but he would not give in.

At last they reached the dike.

"Heaven be praised!" cried Duncan. "And now we shall rest just a short time and then start on and down. Cheer up, lads, we will manage now."

Flora descended from her brother's back, and he sat down on the turf, and took her on his knee.

But where was Vike?

Surely he had not deserted them!

No, for a dog of this breed is faithful unto death.

But now a strange kind of somnolence began to take possession of the boys.

Duncan himself could not resist its power, far less his companions.

"Let us be going, lads," he cried more than once, but he did not move.

He seemed to be unable to lift a limb, and at last he heard the howling of the wind only like sunlit waves breaking on a far-off sandy beach.

He nodded--his chin fell on his breast--he was dreaming.

Ah! but it is from a sleep like this that men, overtaken in a snow-storm, never, never arise. They simply

"Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil, nor night of waking".

In a few minutes, however, Duncan starts. The sound of a dog's voice falls on his ear. Ah! there is no bark in all broad Scotland so sonorous and so sincere as that of honest Vike.

Wowff! Wowff! Wowff!!

There is joy in it, too, for he has found the boys--ah! more than that, he has brought relief, and here are the st.u.r.dy kilted keeper and two farm hands, ready to help them safely home. The keeper has a flask, and all must taste--even Florie, who is hardly yet awake.

How pleasant looked the fire in the fine old dining-hall when, after dressing, the boys came below.

And Glenvoie himself was laughing now, and as he shook Frank's hand, he could not help saying:

"Well, my lad, and how do you like a Highland snow-storm?"

"Ah!" said Frank, laughing in turn, "a little of it goes a long way. I don't want any more Highland snow-storm, thank you--not for Frank!"

The gale seemed to be increasing rather than abating, and it kept on all that night, and for two nights and two days more.

Then it fell calm.

"I trust in Heaven," said M'Vayne, "that Sandie, our shepherd, has reached the shelter of some hut, but I fear the worst. The sheep may be buried, but they will survive; but without food poor Sandie cannot have withstood the brunt of that awful blizzard.

"Boys," he continued, "I shall start at once on a search, and the keeper will come with me."

"And we too."

"Wowff! wowff!" barked Vike, as much as to say, "You'd be poorly off without my a.s.sistance."

It was a lovely forenoon now, with a clear sky, but not as much wind as would suffice to lift one feathery flake.

They meant to find the shepherd, but it was his hard-frozen corpse they expected to dig out of a snow-drift.

CHAPTER VI.--"THE BREATH OF G.o.d WAS OVER ALL THE LAND."

There were two huts on the moorland, one in the open, another close against a ridge of rocks, and in one or other poor Sandie would surely have found shelter.

So to the first they bent their footsteps. It stood with its back to the east, and on the west it was entirely covered with great banks of snow, some of them shaped like waves on the sea-sh.o.r.e, that are just on the eve of breaking.

It took the keeper and two men nearly an hour to break through the barrier and find the doorway.

They could see nothing when they opened it, for all were partially snow-blind.

But they groped around, and called the shepherd by name; then convinced that he was not there, dead or alive, they came sadly away, and joined the group outside.

There was still the other hut to be examined, and this was a good mile higher up the hill.