Half an hour afterwards the snow ceased. "Now," said Acton, quietly, "I
know exactly where that farm is. I'm going to go now and have a try for
it. I'll move the farm people, if I reach 'em, double quick back again
with food, for they're used to these fells, and then we can all go back
to the farm together. The fact is," said Acton, hurriedly, as he saw a
chorus of dissent about to break out, "we _must_ get out of this very
soon. There's the lady and the child--and even more than that, there is
the fireman, who is downright ill. We cannot wait till we're dug out;
that is absolutely certain. I'm not going to run any danger, and if I
find I'm likely to, I'm coming back. I fancy, really," he added,
laughing, "that the most difficult part of the business will be to get
out of this cutting."
The fellows all knew Acton; they knew that when he said things in a
certain tone there was no good arguing. That was why Grim, with a white
face, hurriedly left stoking the blazing fire and retired in dismay to
the guard's van, and why Gus Todd, in an access of angry impatience,
shied the magazine he had been turning over into the middle of the
flames.
Jack Senior said, "This is just like you, Acton. You _will_ fight more
than your share of bargees, but this time I'm going to go one and one
with you. If you like to risk being drowned in those beastly moorland
streams, or to fall into some thirty-feet drift, I'm going to go too.
That is final.
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