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Got two full combs in his desk last week. He's awful on bees and honey. Ain't he, Jinny?" This in a high voice to her sister. The younger Miss Roker, thus appealed to, was heard to murmur that of all the sneakin' bee-hunters she had ever seed, Provy Smith was the worst. "And squirrels for nuts," she added. The master became attentive, a clue seemed probable here.
They peered down, but could see nothing at first but a faint glimmer. "Come down, fellows! It ain't far!" said Tribbs's voice. "Wot yer got there?" asked Julian cautiously. "Suthin' to eat." That was enough. In another instant Julian and Provy went down the chimney. What was a matter of fifteen feet after a thousand?
A voice a smothered one that might be his, came apparently from the snow beneath them. They shouted again; the voice, vague and hollow, responded, but it was now surely his. "Where are you?" screamed Provy. "Down the chimbley." There was a black square of adobe sticking out of the snow near them. They ran to it. There was a hole.
At times they were half suffocated in rolling masses of drift, and again free and skimming over its arrested surface, but always falling, as it seemed to them, almost perpendicularly. In one of these shocks they seemed to be going through a thicket of underbrush; but Provy Smith knew that they were the tops of pine-trees.
At last there was one shock longer and lasting, followed by a deepening thunder below them. The avalanche had struck a ledge in the mountain side, and precipitated its lower part into the valley. Then everything was still, until Provy heard Julian's voice calling. He answered, but there was no response from Tribbs. Had he gone over into the valley? They set up a despairing shout!
They clasped each other's red, benumbed fingers and laughed, albeit a little frightened at Julian. "Go on!" he said, curtly. They went on dazedly, stupidly, for another hour. Suddenly Provy Smith's keen eyes sparkled. He pointed to a singular irregular mound of snow before them, plainly seen above the dreary level. Julian ran to it with a cry, and began wildly digging.
But the spur was really nearer Hemlock Hill, and could have been reached more directly by a road from there. He, however, kept along the ridge, and after half an hour's ride was convinced that Jackson Tribbs could have communicated with Provy Smith without coming nearer Hemlock Hill, and this revived his former belief that they were together.
"Can you give me any idea as to what might have kept them away?" said the master. Hanky Rogers looked quickly around, began, "Playin' hook " in a loud voice, but stopped suddenly without finishing the word, and became inaudible. The master saw fit to ignore him. "Bee-huntin'," said Annie Roker vivaciously. "Who is?" asked the master. "Provy Smith, of course. Allers bee-huntin'. Gets lots o' honey.
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