“Let’s make for the shore!” called out Frank. “We’ll wait until it blows over.”
There was a high cliff not far away, and Frank judged that it would provide shelter from the brunt of the storm until they should be able to continue their journey. Clearly, it was inadvisable to go on, for the wind was against them and they were making little headway. Also, in the fury of the sweeping snow it was possible that they might become separated. So they turned toward the cliff, that they could see dimly through the gray gloom.
The wind shrieked. The snow beat against them. The sharp flakes stung their faces, swept into their eyes. The hurricane seemed like a mighty wall, forcing them back. Doggedly, they skated on, into the face of the blizzard that seemed to be sapping their strength.
Chet Morton already was lagging behind. The snow was collecting on the ice in little heaps and banks that clogged their skates and made progress even more difficult.
The face of the cliff seemed a long distance away. And, with redoubled fury, the wind came howling down over the hills.
Frank was almost exhausted by the constant battle against the wind and snow, and he knew that the others, too, were tiring quickly. It would be death for them if they faltered now. They must reach the shelter of the cliff!
II
A Call for Help
Doggedly, the boys fought their way on through the blizzard.
Once Joe Hardy stumbled and fell prone in the snow. He was up again in a moment, but the incident testified to the difficulty of their progress. The cliff seemed no nearer. To add to their peril twilight was gathering and the gloom of the blizzard was intensified.
“We’ve got to make it,” Frank muttered, gritting his teeth.
The boys were strung out in single file, Chet Morton in the rear. All were tiring. Frank skated more slowly to give the others an opportunity of catching up. When they were together again he waved his arm toward the gray mass that loomed through the storm ahead.
“Almost there!”
His words gave all of them new courage, and they redoubled their efforts. In a short while the force of the wind seemed to be decreasing. They were now gaining the shelter of the cliff. The snow had not collected so heavily on the surface of the ice, and they made better progress. In a few minutes they had skated into an area of comparative calm. They could still hear the screaming of the wind, and when they looked back the entire lake was an inferno of swirling snow, but in the shelter of the steep rocks they were protected from the full fury of the blizzard.
“Some storm!” grunted Chet, as he skated slowly to the base of the cliff and sat down on a frost-encrusted boulder.
“I’ll say it is,” agreed Jerry Gilroy, following Chet’s example.
The Hardy boys leaned against the rocks. They were safe enough in this shelter unless the wind changed completely about, which was unlikely. With the approach of darkness it was growing colder, but all the boys were warmly clad and they had few fears on that score. Their chief worry was lest the storm should not die down in time to permit of their return to Bayport that night, because they knew their people would be worrying about them.
“I see where mother won’t let me go skating again,” declared Chet. “She’s always afraid I’ll get drowned or lost or something, and now she’ll get such a scare that I’ll never get out again.”
“Aunt Gertrude will crow over this for a month,” Joe put in. “She said before we started that we’d be sure to get into some kind of a mess.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait here until the storm blows over, that’s all,” said Frank philosophically. “Even if it does get dark we can follow the river all right and get home easily enough. Perhaps the storm won’t last very long.”
The boys settled themselves down to wait in the lee of the high black rocks until the fury of the blizzard should have diminished. There seemed to be no indication that the storm was dying down and they resigned themselves to a wait of at least an hour. Frank scouted around in search of firewood, planning to light a blaze, but any wood there may have been along the shore had long since been snowed under and he had to give up the attempt.
While the boys are thus marooned by the storm in the shelter of the cliff it might be best to introduce them to new readers of this series.
Frank and Joe Hardy, sixteen and fifteen years old respectively, were the sons of Fenton Hardy, an internationally famous private detective, living in Bayport, on the Atlantic Coast. Although still in high school, both boys had inherited many of their father’s deductive tendencies and his ability in his chosen profession and it was their ambition to some day become detectives themselves.
Their father had made an enviable name for himself. For many years he was with the New York Police Department, but had resigned to accept cases on his own account. He was known as one of the most astute detectives in the country and had solved many mysteries that had baffled city police and detective forces.
In the first volume of this series, “The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure,” Frank and Joe Hardy solved their first mystery, tracing down a mysterious theft of jewels and bonds from a mansion on the outskirts of Bayport after their father had been called in on the case and had been forced to admit himself checkmated. The boys had received a substantial reward
