Upon the mountain-side where the frozen girls and beasts trembled, the wind howled and the blizzard swept along between the trunk of trees, but on the ledge Polly found comparative shelter and only now and then a blast of the gale.
She stopped to beckon to Eleanor and then urged Noddy along the foothold cleft from the cliff. Above, the rock-wall rose to the mountain-top; beneath, Polly could not gauge the depth--it was too dreadful and was now blurred by fine drifts from the blizzard.
After what seemed an age, Polly reached Choko, who still stood obedient to his mistress"s command of "Whoa." But he shook and seemed completely broken up with fear and the shock of the fall.
"Dear little Choko!" purred Polly, jumping from Noddy"s back and softly patting the burro"s woolly face.
The burro affectionately nosed Polly, who gazed quickly at what she thought to be a pit back of the little beast. She gasped in wonderment and went to the dark hole. Then she quickly ran back and took hold of Noddy"s and Choko"s bridles. Standing thus, she shouted to the anxious girls above:
"Come down as carefully as I did and here you will find a cave." With that she disappeared into the yawning black hole, leading both burros.
Barbara and Anne stared at each other in amazement, and the latter said: "Come carefully! Anything is better than freezing here."
Eleanor had already reached the ledge, when Polly came forth from the cavern to shout out advices. The two older girls made the perilous descent safely, and then guided their horses along the ledge until all stood before the cave where the burros were waiting.
"Isn"t this a miracle?" cried Polly, the moment all were safe and the poor beasts were being led inside the refuge.
The girls laughed and cried hysterically when they saw the haven, but the animals seemed uneasy, and Noddy came up to Polly with fear apparent in her expressive eyes.
"Noddy, are you frightened? Surely no wild beast can be in here, at present?" queried Polly, looking around in the semi-gloom.
"Polly! What can it be?" shrieked Barbara, clinging to Anne in fear.
"Better get out again, Polly," suggested Eleanor, seeing the horses paw the floor, and strain their eyes to see.
"Are we safe here, Polly dear?" asked Anne.
"Safer here than up there," returned Polly, and as she spoke a great tree was flung down over the edge of the gorge just where ledge and slope met.
"Now we can"t crawl out if we wanted to--the tree obstructs the way,"
declared Polly, decidedly.
"But we must see what it is that disturbs the animals," advised Anne.
"I"d rather throw myself over the cliff than be clawed to bits by a panther!" wailed Barbara.
"The horses are quieting down now, and Noddy seems as much at home as anywhere, so I reckon it was only strangeness that made them act queer," said Eleanor.
"But something may pounce out upon us, and take us unawares!" wailed Barbara.
"I propose to smoke them out as soon as I make a fire!" said Polly, looking about in the darkness of the cave for a possible stick of wood, but not finding any.
"I"ll have to chop some of that pine! Noddy can carry me safer than I can walk on this ledge, so I want you girls to promise to keep the horses close about you and wait right here until I get back!" said Polly, taking the ax from the pack.
"Polly, I"m coming too! Two axes are better than one, and I can ride my burro, too!" declared Eleanor.
Anne and Polly sent the girl a look of grat.i.tude, while Barbara was speechless until after Eleanor started to go, then she remonstrated volubly.
The two girls crept toward the down-thrown pine, and Eleanor said, "We"ll need wood for a fire, won"t we?"
"Yes, we will have to remain in the cave all night, and it gets so terribly cold upon these mountain peaks that we will be frozen unless we warm up the interior of the cavern. Then, too, we may need to keep fires going at the back end of the cave as well as in front, to ward off wild beasts!"
They were slowly advancing when another awful crash came from the slope above. Both girls ducked instinctively, but the decayed pine that was broken off above ground fell over the edge of the cliff just in front of them and obstructed the way so that progress was impossible.
Eleanor quaked and cried, "Oh, let"s go back, Polly!"
But Polly laughed. "Glory be, our fire-wood came to us halfway."
At her cheerful words, Eleanor braced up again.
Polly jumped from Noddy"s back and started to hew at the soft decayed wood. It was easy to chop and would furnish a flaring fire, even though it would burn rapidly and need constant replenishing.
"Nolla, this is the second miracle to-day! Had we hunted the mountain over, no better wood could have been found for just our need. Yonder on that other pine, when this is out of our way, awaits our bedding."
"What funny bedding!"
"Just you wait and see."
When enough wood was chopped to clear a way on the ledge, Polly showed Eleanor how to make bundles of it. These were tied by means of the rope to Noddy"s harness and carefully dragged back to the cave. Several trips had to be made before both burros had brought the firewood to the growing pile in the cave.
When Polly spoke of cutting balsam for beds, Anne offered to help, as she was so cold.
"And leave me here alone?" cried Barbara.
"Why don"t you come with us?" asked Eleanor.
"I"m dead! I can"t do another thing!"
"Then stay here and cheer the burros," said Eleanor.
"I won"t let every one of you go and leave me to be killed by a wild animal," shuddered Barbara, looking over her shoulder.
"Nothing wild here, but you, Bob. However, you may light a fire for us, while we are gone," retorted Eleanor, unsympathetically.
Without further comment, Barbara was left, and soon the girls were stripping the spruce which had blown over the ledge. Its green branches would make the softest of wild-wood beds.
"It really was fortunate that both these trees came down when they did!
We would have to remove them as obstacles to our going out in the morning, and I would have had to hunt well before I could have found such fine tinder! So I"ve really saved myself a double chopping!" said Polly, as they tied up the last bundle of evergreen branches and started the burros for the cave.
"I"m just frozen, and I wish you would hurry and build a fire!" cried Barbara, petulantly, when the girls came within hearing.
No one replied, but Eleanor was furious, while the others were impatient with the girl.
"I was so hungry that I tried to get a sandwich out of the pannier, but something made a noise back in the cave, and I"m sure it was a rattle-snake buzzing!" added Barbara, trying to win sympathy from the stony-faced companions.
"Pooh! You"ve got rattle-snake on the brain! It would have done you good to get out there with us and do some rattling of the ax on the wood!"
"Why, Nolla! How unkind you are since we came to this awful country!"
cried Barbara, not able to find a handkerchief, and sniffing audibly.