gloomy feelings that clung like a wet blanket, "we'll never be able to
run our iceboats back home. Chances are we'll have to drag them most
of the way."

"All right, then," Paul told him, "we'll make the best of a bad
bargain. If you only look hard enough, Bluff and Sandy, you'll find
the silver lining to every cloud. And no matter how the storm upsets
some of our plans we ought to be thankful we've got such a snug
shelter, and plenty of good things to eat--thanks to Mr. Garrity."

"Yes, that's what I just had in mind, Paul," spoke up Bobolink. "Now,
you all needn't begin to grin at me when I say that. I was thinking
more about the fellows who may be shivering and hungry, than of our
own well-fed crowd."

"Oh! The Lawsons!" exclaimed Bluff. "That's a fact. While we're having
such a royal time of it here they may be up against it good and
hard."

Perhaps all of the boys had from time to time allowed their thoughts
to stray away, and mental pictures of the Lawson crowd suffering from
hunger and cold intruded upon their minds. They forgot whatever they
chanced to be doing at that moment, and came around Paul.

"In one way it would serve them right if they did get a little rough
experience," observed Spider Sexton, who perhaps had suffered more at
the hands of the Stanhope bully and his set than any of the other
scouts.

"Oh, that sort of remark hardly becomes you, Spider," Paul reminded
him. "If you remember some of the rules and regulations to which you
subscribed when joining the organization you'll find that scouts have
no business to feel bitter toward any one, especially when the fellows
they look on as enemies may be suffering."

"Excuse me, Paul, I guess I spoke without thinking," said Spider, with
due humility. "And to prove it I'm going to suggest that we figure out
some way we might be of help to Hank and his lot."

"That's more like it, Spider!" the scout-master exclaimed, as though
pleased. "None of us fancy those fellows, because so far we've failed
to make any impression on them. Several times we've tried to make an
advance, but they jeered at us, and seemed to think it was only fear
on our part that made us try to throw a bridge across the chasm
separating us. It's going to be different if, as we half believe,
they're in serious trouble."

"But Paul, what could we do to help them?" demanded Bluff.

"With this storm raging to beat the band," added Tom Betts, "it would
be as much as our lives wer