ing upon an open space, close to the very spot where the snow-mass
had fallen on Roy's head. After the first feeling of alarm and
disappointment had subsided, Roy plucked up heart and encouraged Nelly
by pointing out to her that they had at all events recovered their old
track, which they would be very careful not to lose sight of again.

Poor Nelly whimpered a little, partly from cold and hunger as well as
from disappointment, as she listened to her brother's words; then she
dried her eyes and said she was ready to begin again. So they set off
once more. But the difficulty of discerning the track, if great at
first, was greater now, because the falling and drifting snow had
well-nigh covered it up completely. In a very few minutes Roy stopped,
and, confessing that he had lost it again, proposed to return once more
to their starting point to try to recover it. Nelly agreed, for she was
by this time too much fatigued and alarmed to have any will of her own,
and was quite ready to do whatever she was told without question.

After wandering about for nearly an hour in this state of uncertainty,
Roy at last stopped, and, putting his arm round his sister's waist, said
that he had lost himself altogether! Poor Nelly, whose heart had been
gradually sinking, fairly broke down; she hid her face in her brother's
bosom, and wept.

"Come now, don't do that, dear Nell," said Roy, tenderly, "I'll tell you
what we shall do--we'll camp in the snow! We have often done it close
to the house, you know, for fun, so we'll do it now in earnest."

"But it's so dark and cold," sobbed Nelly, looking round with a shudder
into the dark recesses of the forest, which were by that time enshrouded
by the gathering shades of night; "and I'm _so_ hungry too! Oh me! what
_shall_ we do?"

"Now _don't_ get so despairing," urged Roy, whose courage rose in
proportion as his sister's sank; "it's not such an awful business after
all, for father is sure to scour the woods in search of us, an' if we
only get a comfortable encampment made, an' a roarin' fire kindled, why,
we'll sit beside it an' tell stories till they find us. They'll be sure
to see the fire, you know, so come--let's to work."

Roy said this so cheerfully that the child felt a little comforted,
dried her eyes, and said she would "help to make the camp."

This matter of making an encampment in the snow, although laborious
work, was by no means a novelty to these children of the bac