, and the white banks of snow.

"Oh, but it's cold work!" he cried, as he stopped to warm his hands, for
the little room on the roof was draughty, and the snow blew in.

"It's a wonderful storm," cried Alice. "I wouldn't have missed it for
worlds!"

All that day the storm raged, and all that night. There was nothing
which could be done out of doors, and so the players and the men of the
Lodge were forced to remain within. Great fires were kept up, for the
temperature was very low.

The wise forethought of Mr. Macksey in providing for the stock prevented
the animals from starving, as they would have done had not a supply of
fodder been left for them. For it was out of the question to get to the
barns.

After two days the storm ceased, the skies cleared and the sun shone.
But on what a totally different scene than before the coming of the
great blizzard!

There had been plenty of snow in Deerfield before, but now there was so
much that one old man, who worked for Mr. Macksey, said he never
recalled the like, and he had seen many bad storms.

"Well, now to tunnel out!" exclaimed Mr. Macksey when it had been
ascertained, by an observation from the cupola, that the fall of snow
was over. "We'll see if we can't raise the embargo."

But it was no easy matter. All the doors were blocked by drifts, and in
making a tunnel through snow it is just as necessary to have some place
to put the removed material as it is in tunneling through the side of a
hill.

"We can't start in and dig from the door, for we'd have to pile the snow
in the room back of us," said the hunter. "So the only other plan is to
get outside, somehow, and work up to the house, tossing the snow to one
side. I may have to dig a trench instead of a tunnel. I'll soon find
out."

Finally it was decided that the men should go to the second story, out
on a balcony that opened from Mr. DeVere's room, and get down into the
snow that way. They would use snowshoes so as to have some support, and
thus they could attack the drifts.

This plan was followed. Fortunately Mr. Macksey had thought to bring in
snow shovels before the storm came, and with these the men attacked the
big white piles.

It was hard work, but they labored with a will, and there were enough of
them to make an effective attack. Mr. Macksey, in spite of the fact that
he had food and water for his stock, was anxious to see how the animals
were doing. So he directed that first paths, tunnels or