"Behind this door--for example," said Felton, entering into his wife's mood, and glad for any little diversion to check thought and imagination. There had been standing against the wall in one dark corner of the room an old door, evidently brought in from some outhouse for the repairing of its hinges. It had not been disturbed since the new occupancy of the place. Felton grasped the pineplanks in both hands and set them to one side. There semi-gleaming in the candlelight hung revealed one of the two business ends of the common place and eminently valuable telephone of North America. Felton gasped and then sat down backwards on the floor. "Holy smoke," was all he said. Catherine came running to the half dazed man but for a little time he said nothing. He was thinking. He remembered suddenly that there was a telephone between the mine and the nearest town in the valley, that to which the miners had fled. Of course the line was deep beneath the snow, part of the way, but it might be working. He looked at his wife in a dazed way, clambered to his feet and took hold of the receiver. "Don't be disappointed," said Catherine, "if it doesn't work. We shall be saved somehow." "Hello!" shouted Felton, into the familiar, waiting 'phone. The dazed wife stood by in the silence which ensued, saying nothing. Moment after moment passed and there came no answer. Still the man stood there repeating at intervals of four or five minutes the hopeless word, the call "Hello". Suddenly he upreared himself, laughed somewhat wildly, and applied his lips to the transmitter. "Hello! Who is this?" came the query from Sharon. "I am Robert Felton. Tell Jim Worthy or George Long that we are snowed in at Parsons, without provisions for more than a few days, and tell them to come in a hurry--the trail is from five to twenty feet deep in snow." "Who do you mean by we--all of the Parson's crowd?" Then another question was put. "My wife is with me--we are alone--the Parson's outfit left the night the storm began." "All right. Keep a stiff upper lip. There'll be help coming," called the operator, and the bell rung ending the conversation. Felton could not speak. He sat dumbly waiting, while Catherine chattered to him of commonplace things to win him back to his ordinary frame of mind. Soon the telephone bell rang again, and this time friendly, well known voices gave messages of hope and good cheer. It was rumored that the men from Parson's camp were on the way--but so far they had not arrived. Men and horses amply supplied with tools, with provisions, with everything needful, would leave the valley at once for the work of rescue. "But how long can you hold out?" at last broke in one of the heartsome, friendly voices. "It may take us ten or even twenty days to shovel through to you--can you stand such a siege?" "We'll do our best," returned Felton, over the wire, "but the truth is, we are pretty short of food, so take no chances."