The girls were soon so benumbed with cold that they were glad to creep beneath the sleigh robes, and the roads were becoming so blocked with drifts that their progress was very slow indeed.  Several times they stuck fast, and Lancy had to get out and tramp down the snow, while, with encouraging words, he urged the horse along; but in one of these heavy drifts, snap! went the shaft.

This was a misfortune indeed, for a thorough search in pockets and sleigh-box failed to produce a string or strap of any kind.

Elsie had been on the verge of crying for some time, and this new disaster brought the tears in earnest.

“We shall all freeze to death here!” she sobbed.  “Whatever shall we do?”

“You can stop crying, Elsie,” said Lancy, who felt bewildered by this new difficulty.  “I am bothered enough already.  I suppose it is no use to ask you girls if you have any kind of string in your pockets,” he added.

“No, of course we haven’t,” replied Elsie, quite cross.  “Girls don’t fill their pockets with trash!”

“Here is my belt, Lancy,” and Dexie held up a strap of Russian leather.  “Do you think you can bind up the shaft with that?”

After some delay, the shaft was strapped together, and they slowly pressed onward.

“How far do you think we are from Halifax, Lancy?” Dexie asked, after they had travelled some distance through the drifts.

“I can hardly say, Dexie, we have come so slowly; but I fear we are not more than halfway.”

This was indeed the truth, and the storm seemed increasing in violence; but if a thought of danger passed through their minds, no voice was given to it.

Presently they passed a farmhouse, and they almost decided to stop and ask shelter; but just here the road seemed better, so they pressed on, knowing that their absence would make those at home very anxious.  For some distance the road was less drifted, owing to the shelter of a line of trees that skirted it, but farther on they came to drifts that were high and hard packed, through which the horse gave a plunge, breaking the other shaft, and this brought matters to a crisis.

“It is no use, girls; we can’t get home to-night.  It is a pity we did not stop at that farmhouse,” said Lancy, as he ascertained damages.  “We will have to get back somehow, I’m afraid.”

But how to get back was a question.  They had passed the farmhouse such a long time ago that it seemed as if it must be miles behind.  Lancy was almost in despair as he felt the broken shaft.  How could they reach the farmhouse in this disabled condition?  Although suffering intensely from the cold, he thought little of it, but he began to have serious misgivings as to the safety of the girls.

“I am so sorry I asked either of you to come with me,” he said, as he bent his head to speak to the shivering girls.  “I shall have to cut the reins and tie up the shaft with them, but I fear it will be slow work retracing our way.”