Moving back over to Joe to sit for a moment, he thought he heard the flutter-flutter of an engine overhead. He staggered toward one of the windows that had not been buried in the avalanche. Looking skyward, Frank saw what was making the noise. It was a helicopter.

Help has arrived, he thought.

"Are there any flares?" Frank asked loudly, waking Joe from his sound sleep.

"Why do you want the flares?" Joe asked rolling onto his back, then sitting up.

"There's a helicopter out there," Frank said struggling to stay on his feet. Exhaustion was taking over again.

"Here," Joe said hurrying over with the flare gun. He pushed open the window, cocked the gun and fired.

They watched the flare go into the air. They hoped whoever was in the helicopter saw the light and knew there were people still alive in the lodge.

"There's a flare!" Fenton said pointing straight ahead to Jim.

"That means there are people still alive in the lodge," Jim said. "I'm going to call for assistance and see if we can land somewhere to see what the situation is."

Fenton leaned back and looked out the side window staring at the lodge. He had a bad feeling that his sons were hurt. He wanted to get there as quickly as he could to make sure they were all right.

Jim finally found a spot he could safely land the helicopter and slowly placed it on the ground. As they started to get out, Jim said, "There are some extra blankets under the seat there. We may need them."

"Got it." Fenton grabbed the blankets and climbed out of the helicopter after Jim. They slowly trudged their way through the snow drifts toward the lodge.

"We're here!" a voice yelled as they got closer.

Fenton stopped in his tracks. He knew that voice. It was Joe. Squinting in the sunlight, he saw his youngest son standing near a door waving to them. He let out a sigh of relief he was all right.

When they reached the lodge, Joe gasped seeing his father, but welcomed the tight embrace they shared.

Joe pulled back and said, "We have some injured in here."

"Are you all right?" Fenton asked keeping a hand on his shoulder.

Joe let out a breath. "I've had better days. But I'm okay. I wasn't hurt in the avalanche."

"What about Frank?" Fenton said as they stepped inside. Jim hurried over to some of the injured to see what he could do.

"He's all right."

"Really?"

"He's been out since the avalanche, but he came to a while ago."

"Where is he?"

"By the fire," Joe said leading the way. "The cold is really getting to him and that was the warmest spot."

Getting closer to the fire, Fenton stopped quickly at the sight of his oldest son. His face was pale, almost white and he looked like he was ready to collapse.

"Frank."

Frank looked up in surprise. "Dad! What are you doing here?"

"I planned to surprise you, but this wasn't what I expected."

"We didn't expect this either."

"Mr. Hardy," Jim said coming over to them. "I am going to go radio the rescuers and tell them about those that are injured."

"All right," Fenton said.

As Jim left, Joe said, "Dad, we really need to talk because I don't think the avalanche was an accident."

"What do you mean?"