“I can’t skate through this!” cried Andy, at last. “Let us take our skates off and walk,” suggested Boxy. But Harry and Jack quickly vetoed this. It was just as easy to plow through the snow on skates, and it was easier to skate over the clear patches of ice than walk. So they kept on their skates, and thereafter Jack helped his younger brother whenever Andy seemed in danger of pegging out. “My ears are all but frozen,” said Boxy, at last. “My right one has no feeling in it any longer.” “Rub snow on it,” suggested Harry. “And rub it on hard, too,” and he showed his companion how to do it. “Dis am de werry worst trip I eber tuk,” declared Pickles, solemnly. “An’ I won’t take anudder in a long, long while.” “If we could only see away ahead,” said Jack; “but the snow hides everything fifty feet off.” “And the storm is growing wilder every second,” added Andy. “This will knock out hunting for a day or two, even if we strike a camp,” declared Boxy, breathing heavily, to keep up with the others. “Oh, it will be all right if it stops snowing and the sun comes out,” returned Jack, as cheerfully as he could. “By golly! it looks like it would snow fo’ a week!” cried Pickles. “Jess look how thick it am comin’ down now! Jess like somebody was a-shakin’ out a fedder-bed ober our heads!” Pickles was right. The snow was now coming down so thickly that it seemed to fill every inch of the air. Their vision in every direction was cut off to but a few feet in front of them. “Stick close together,” urged Harry. “If we become separated we’ll never find each other again.” His timely advice was heeded and they bunched up so closely that they frequently took hold of each other’s arms. It was hard work to drag the sled now, and two had to take hold instead of only one. Finally they came to a long, solid drift of snow, all of six feet high, and two or three yards wide. Jack and Harry mounted to the top, and, despite the swirling snow and cutting wind, essayed to pierce the gathering darkness around them. It was useless. Nothing but snow and ice was to be seen. Night was coming on, and they were lost in the pelting storm! CHAPTER XVI. SETTLING DOWN IN CAMP. It certainly was a dismal outlook, lost on the lake in a howling snowstorm, and night coming on. Small wonder that all of the members of the Zero Club were filled with fear as to the outcome of the unexpected situation. The wind blew sharper than ever, cutting like a knife, and causing their teeth to chatter in spite of themselves. The snowflakes settled on their faces and had to be brushed off their eyebrows that they might see. “Here’s a state of things, and no error,” remarked Boxy, as he joined Harry and Jack in front of the big snowdrift. “Have we got to go through this?” “We’ve got to do something,” returned Jack, with a certain sort of desperateness in his voice. “If we stay out here much longer we’ll be frozen to death and buried in the snow!”