tively:

"I am proprietor of this. We serve only gentlemen. You will go
to--to--to--elsewhere."

Gus leaped up, forgetting the fright after his last fisticuffs. He
wanted to punch this villain again.

"Listen, you confounded nuisance! This is a public place and we
demand--" He got no further, for Tony's hand was on his arm.

"Attendate, _mio amico_--wait! Would you eat eats in a such place? We
might all getta the poison here. Mucho better we go of our selves."

Malatesta beat a hasty retreat. The lads went out and along the street
to another place equally attractive and there they ate unsparingly, the
while discussing their latest experience, though Tony was silent on
that. Finally Bill and Gus fell into his mood. They came out of the
restaurant after an hour, to find that the storm had increased, a stiff,
knife-edged wind driving the snow horizontally and making drifts. The
taxi driver at the garage looked dubious, but agreed to try for
Marshallton. The worst that could happen would be a night spent at some
farmhouse.

The storm increased rapidly, the snow turning partly to sleet piled up
in long windrows across all half-sheltered places, leaving open spots
bare, so that the road resembled the storm waves of a white and foaming
ocean. The car skidded along on icy ground one minute, and the next its
wheels were buried in caked drifts.

The boys were peering out, watching the strange effects of the storm,
but noting with greater concern the slowing up of the taxi. Then they
stopped.

"Reckon we can't make it," said the jolly, round-faced taxi driver. They
could not stay there in the road. It was imperative that they should
find a shelter somewhere. Not half a mile ahead there was a farmhouse in
which they might all be made welcome and comfortable.

Again the man had proved to be correct. The boys agreed that forecasting
the weather and the social geography of that region were in his line. He
tried to run on again, but the starter refused to boost the engine and
the battery nearly gave out. Bill insisted that they crank up and not
exhaust the battery, else they would come to a dead stop. Gus and Tony
lent a hand in turning the engine over and soon they were again bucking
the drifts, stalling the engine two or three times within the next three
hundred yards. A drift faced them that was altogether beyond hope, and
before they drove into it, Bill insisted that they back over the thinner
snow to the side of the roa