"But we can go on, clinging to each other's jacket-tails."

The six had come together, and Helen laughingly "counted noses."
"Though we mustn't even count 'em _hard_," she said, briskly
rubbing her own, "or we'll break them off. Isn't it cold?"

"It's dreadful!" wailed Lluella. "The wind cuts right through
everything I've got on. I shall freeze if we stand here."

"We won't stand here. We'll hurry on to the camp."

"Which way, girls?" demanded Heavy. "I confess I have lost all the
points of the compass--and I never did know them too well."

"Oh, I know the way back," said Helen, stoutly. "Don't you, Ruth?"

"I believe so," replied the girl from the Red Mill.

But when they started, Ruth was for one direction and Helen for
another. The fact that they did not all think alike frightened them,
and Madge called another halt.

"This will never do," she said, earnestly. "Why, we might be lost in
such thick snow as this."

"I can't walk any farther with this bag and on these old snow-shoes!"
cried Heavy. "Say! let's get under shelter somewhere and wait
for it to hold up--or until they come and dig us out."

"We're a nice lot of 'babes in the woods'," sniffed Belle.