Elijah was one of the hard-bitten old-time travelers himself.

The round trip was a hundred miles, but he promised to be back on the third day, one day going light, two days returning heavy.

Instead, he arrived on the night of the second day.

They had just gone to bed when they heard him coming.
"What in hell's the matter now ?" Henry Finn demanded, as the empty sled came into the circle of firelight and as he noted that Elijah's long, serious face was longer and even more serious.
Joe Hines threw wood on the fire, and the three men, wrapped in their robes, huddled up close to the warmth.

Elijah's whiskered face was matted with ice, as were his eyebrows, so that, what of his fur garb, he looked like a New England caricature of Father Christmas.
"You recollect that big spruce that held up the corner of the cache next to the river ?" Elijah began.
The disaster was quickly told.