The night after this conversation Paul was awakened by a patter upon their skin and thatch roof.  It must have been two or three o’clock in the morning, and he had been sleeping very comfortably.  He lay on furs, and the soft side of a buffalo robe was wrapped close about him.  He could not remember any time in his life when he felt snugger, and he wanted to go back to sleep, but that patter upon the roof was insistent.  He raised himself up a little, and he heard along with the patter the breathing of his four comrades.  But it was pitch dark in the hut, and, rolling over to the doorway, he pulled aside a few inches the stout buffalo hide that covered it.  Something hard and white struck him in the face and stung like shot.

It was hailing, pouring hard and driven fiercely by the wind.  Moreover, it was bitterly cold, and Paul quickly shut down the buffalo flap, fastening it tightly.  “We’re snowed in and hailed in, too,” he murmured to himself.  Then he drew his buffalo robe around his body more closely than ever, and went back to sleep.  The next morning it rained on top of the hail for about an hour, but after that it quickly froze again, the air turning intensely cold.  Then Paul beheld the whole world sheathed in glittering ice.  The sight was so dazzling that his eyes were almost blinded, but it was wonderfully beautiful, too.  The frozen surface of the lake threw back the light in myriads of golden sheaves, and every tree, down to the last twig, gleamed in a silvery polished sheath.

“It ‘pears to me,” said Shif’less Sol lazily, “that we ain’t on an islan’ no longer.  The Superior Powers hev built a drawbridge, on which anything can pass.”

“That’s so,” said Paul.  “The ice must be thick enough now to bear a war party.”

“Ef that war party didn’t slip up an’ break its neck,” said Shif less Sol.  “All that meltin’ stuff froze hard, an’ it’s like glass now.  Jest you try it, Paul.”

Paul went out in the hollow, and at his very first step his feet flew from under him and he landed on his back.  Everywhere it was the same way—­ice like glass, that no one could tread on and yet feel secure.

“We have our drawbridge,” said Paul, “but it doesn’t seem to me to be very safe walking on it.”

Nevertheless, Henry and Ross slipped away two nights later, and were gone all the next day and another night.  When they returned they reported that the Miami village was pretty well snowed up, and that the hunters even were not out.  Braxton Wyatt was still there, and they believed he would soon be up to some sort of mischief—­it was impossible for him to remain quiet and behave himself very long.

“Meanwhile what are we to do?” asked Paul.

“Just stay quiet,” said Henry.  “We’ll wait for Braxton and his savages to act first.”

But the ice did not remain long, all melting away as the fickle northwestern weather turned comparatively warm again, and the five once more began to move about freely.