Polly of Pebbly Pit Part 30

"Here! Use this to amuse yourself with while _we work!"_ said Eleanor, taking a neatly folded handkerchief from her coat pocket.

When Eleanor turned again to the others, she found Anne had unharnessed the burros and piled the saddles upon a stone projection near the opening of the cave.

There were numerous little finger-like caves that branched out from the main cave, but they led nowhere and seemed empty. Polly noticed that the dry leaves and loose shale scattered about appeared to have been undisturbed for months. Some of the leaves were from the harvest of the previous fall, so she felt sure no beast had prowled about the "fingers."

Coming to a much larger extension than any of the others had been, Polly called out: "This must be the thumb of the hand!"

"Sure it isn't the arm!" laughed Eleanor.

"Ah, I thought so--now I have it!" murmured Polly, finding a nest of leaves and soft feathers packed down with bits of fur and dry gra.s.s.

"What have you found?" eagerly asked three voices.

"The lair of a grizzly. I've got him!" cried Polly, triumphantly.

Instantly, three girls screamed and turned to run, and Polly laughed.

"I've got him on the _outside,_ girls! He can't get in with that fire smoking his front doorway, you see." "Oh, hurry back and pile more wood on the fire!" cried Eleanor, quaking with fear.

"Yes, yes, Polly! Come away and let's build more fires!" added Barbara, not knowing which one of the girls to hide behind, and looking at the horses as if pondering a refuge with them.

"What! And use all of our 'safety first' before dawn! If you waste the wood now, what will you do when old grizzly comes prowling home and finds your fires dying down?" said Polly.

"Well, do have one of us go and tend the fire carefully so it can't possibly die down and let him in!" added Anne.

"We are almost through exploring, so we may as well finish! Then we will all go and have supper and feed the animals."

The remainder of the cave proved to be a rocky wall gradually sloping down until it reached the entrance again. But, just at one side of the "thumb" was an aperture from which the wind blew in, as could be seen when Polly held her torch down to the opening.

"That leads out somewhere, and that opening is big enough to let a panther creep through, or a wild-cat! I'd like to crawl through there and make sure where it comes out and if it is quite safe on the other side," suggested Polly, looking at the girls.

"Oh, Polly dear! Don't do it! Suppose something should happen to you!"

cried Anne.

"Why, I wouldn't let it, Anne! If I creep through that tunnel, I'd shove the torch in first and keep it moving ahead of me all the way, so that nothing could grab me, you see!" said Polly, half laughingly.

"I say, Polly, let well enough alone. Let's go back and get supper and rest for to-morrow!" advised Barbara.

"But just s'posing a rattle-snake was coiled up inside that tunnel! A burro wouldn't smell it, and it could crawl out during the night and take a good straight bite!" teased Eleanor.

Polly laughed, but Barbara thought Eleanor meant it, so she replied: "Then Polly had better go in and see if everything is safe for the night."

Anne had been so rudely shocked that day at the selfishness apparent in Barbara's character, that she did not try to hide her opinion. The wonder was, that she ever could have been so completely taken in during the months in Denver, as to declare Barbara to be a splendid girl when one knew her. She now decided that it took ranch life and mountain exploits to show up genuine characteristics and thoughts.

"Polly, I'll go in first!" offered Eleanor, dropping to her knees to crawl in at the opening.

"Eleanor Maynard! Come back here!" cried Barbara, taking hold of her sister's feet.

"Nolla, you shan't take the glory from me!" laughed Polly.

Meantime Eleanor was pulled back and rolled over, laughing as heartily as if she were at a farce-comedy.

"Now listen to me!" advised Polly, shaking a finger at the three girls.

"First of all, Anne and Bob must go and watch the fires, then unpack the panniers, and next make beds of the tips--you know how, Anne?"

"I've watched the school children at Bear Forks weave it, so I'm sure I can make them, too," replied Anne.

"Good! You stick the little stem-ends under the soft fuzz of the others just laid. The princ.i.p.al thing is not to have hard prods hurting the body, and the tips will take care of the springs and softness, all right," said Polly.

"While Anne is making the beds, Bob can fix up odds and ends of spruce and leaves in the 'fingers' for the horses' beds--a bed in each finger, Bob. If the animals are comfortably bedded down they will be fresh in the morning. And if we hide them in those fingers the scent will not be so apt to reach a grizzly or lion should any prowl about to-night."

"Where shall I place the spruce beds for us?" asked Anne.

"Fix up two on each side of the cave as near the entrance as possible, Anne. We need air and the warmth from the fires. Then, too, we can hear any wild beast that may prowl around to-night," advised Polly. "If Nolla wants to go with me she takes _second_ place, see!"

Eleanor laughed and said, "Anywhere as long as we start!"

"Polly, first I want you to promise me not to be reckless in going through that tunnel. If you meet with the slightest danger or hazard, promise to back right out again," begged Anne.

"All right, Anne, I promise, but my shoes will mar my follower's beauty if I back down on her face."

Thus joking to make little of the danger, Polly started in through the hole. Eleanor followed and the two older girls stood watching until not a sound, or ray of the torch, could be seen. Then they went to the front of the cave to replenish the fires and prepare supper.

CHAPTER XIV

OLD MONTRESOR'S LEGACY

"I'm afraid to fix the beds in those finger caves, Anne," whimpered Barbara, coming over to where the young woman was weaving the beds of spruce.

"What is there to be afraid of? The burros and horses won't hurt you, and they are too weary with this day's troubles to bother about kicking or trampling you. However, you can do this, if you like, and I will make up the beds for the beasts."

The spruce beds were being made--Anne showing Barbara how to lay the tips in rows as wide as the bed was to be, then folding under the sticks of the second row to run under the tips of the first row, and so on, until the length of the bed was made.

This work finished, and the bedding for the horses arranged in the "fingers" as Polly had directed, the two girls stood near the entrance of the cave, wondering what possibly could have happened to keep Polly and Eleanor so long.

"I just felt in my bones that it was an awful risk to go into the black hole of the unknown!" cried Barbara.

"It isn't that that bothers me at all, Bob. But Polly has no sense of fear, and I think they may have found an exit at the other end, so Polly is coming around that way. It is a hazardous thing to do, in this storm!" said Anne.

"Anne, can't you try to squeeze in there and see what has happened?"

asked Barbara.

Anne looked at her without saying a word, so Barbara thought she hesitated on account of leaving her alone in the cave.

"I won't mind staying alone for a little time. I'll watch the fires and see that the horses do not get away!" said Barbara.