around. Some of the scouts began
to feel very queerly as they stared furtively at the snow covered
elevation. It reminded them of a white tomb, for somewhere underneath
it they feared the four boys from Stanhope might be buried, too weak
to dig their way out.

Tolly Tip led them on with unerring fidelity.

"How does it come, Tolly Tip," asked the curious Jud as they toiled
onward, "that you remember this hole in the rocks so well?"

"That's an aisy question to answer," replied the other, with one of
his smiles. "Sure 'twas some years ago that I do be having a nate
little ruction with the only bear I iver kilt in this section. He was
a rouser in the bargain, I'd be after tillin' ye. I had crawled into
the rift in the rocks to say where it lid whin I found mesilf up
aginst it."

"Oh! in that case I can see that you would be apt to remember the hole
in the rocks always," commented Jud. "A fellow is apt to see that kind
of thing many a time in his dreams. So those fellows happened on the
old bear den, did they?"

"We're clost up to the same now, I'm plazed to till ye," announced the
guide. "If ye cast an eye beyont ye'll mebbe notice that spur av rock
that stands out like a ploughshare. Jist behind the same we'll strike
the crack in the rocks, and like as not find it filled to the brim wid
the snow."

When the five scouts and their guide stood alongside the spur of rock,
looking down into the cavity now hidden by ten feet of snow, they were
somehow forced to turn uneasy faces toward one another. It was deathly
still there, and not a sign could they see to indicate that under the
shroud of snow the four Stanhope boys might be imprisoned, almost dead
with cold and hunger.

CHAPTER XXVI

DUG OUT

The boys realized that they had heavy work before them if they hoped
to dig a way down through that mass of snow and reach the cleft in the
rocks.

"Just mark out where we have to get busy, Tolly Tip," called out
Bobolink, after they had put aside their packs, and primed themselves
for work, "and see how we can dig."

"I speak for first turn with the snow shovel!" cried Jud. "It'll bring
a new set of muscles into play, for one thing, and that means relief.
I own up that my legs feel pretty well tuckered out."

The woodsman, however, chose to begin the work himself. After taking
his bearings carefully, he began to dig the snow shovel deep down, and
cast the loosely packed stuff aside.

In order to reach the c