The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound Part 23

"And what big icicles!"

"Oh, if we could only keep that until Summer!"

Thus the young people cried as they saw the beautiful ice cave. It was indeed a pretty sight. Nature, unaided, had done more than man could ever hope to achieve.

"Let's go inside," suggested Russ.

"Will it be safe?" asked Ruth.

"Oh, surely. Why, we have to go in it when we make the moving picture, so we might as well get used to it. They say this ice lasts nearly all summer. It's down in a deep hollow, you see. Come on in."

"Go ahead! I'm game!" Paul said, grimly.

The girls hesitated, but only for a moment. Then they followed the young men into the cavern.

The entrance was rather small, and they had to stoop to get through it, but once inside the cave widened out until there was room for perhaps a dozen persons.

"What a lovely place for a dance!" cried Alice, as she slid about. "It's so slippery that you'd need those new slippers with rubber set in the sole. Come, on, try a hesitation waltz," she cried gaily to Ruth.

Paul whistled one of the latest popular airs, and Ruth and Alice slid about.

"Come on!" cried Paul to Russ. "I'm getting the craze, too."

The two young men danced together a moment, and then came an interruption that caused them all to look at one another.

There was a grinding, crashing sound outside, and the next moment the entrance to the cave was darkened.

CHAPTER XVII

THE RESCUE

"What happened?"

"There must have been an ice slide!"

It was Alice who asked the question, and Paul who answered it. Standing in the darkened ice cave, through the walls of which, however, some light filtered, the four looked anxiously at one another.

"It was the dancing that did it," declared Ruth, in a low voice. "It loosened the ice and it slid down."

"Perhaps not," said Paul, not wanting Alice blamed, for she had proposed the light-footed stepping about on the slippery floor of the cavern. "It might have slid down itself."

"Well, let's see what the situation is," proposed Russ. "We can't stay in here too long, for it's freezing cold."

"Yes, let's see if we can get out," added Paul.

"See if we _can_ get out!" repeated Ruth. "Why, is there any danger that we can not?"

"Every danger in the world, I should say," spoke Russ, and there was a worried note in his voice. "I don't want to alarm you," he went on, "but the fact is that we are shut up in this ice cave."

"Oh, don't say that!" cried Ruth.

"Why shouldn't he--if it's true?" asked Alice. "Let's face the situation, whatever it is. Russ, will you see just how bad it is?"

Without speaking, the young moving picture operator went to the hole through which they had stooped to enter the cavern. In a moment he came back.

"It's closed tighter than a drum," he announced. "A lot of ice slid down from above and closed the entrance to the cave as if a door had been shoved across it. We can't get out!"

For a moment no one spoke, and then Paul asked, quietly:

"What are we going to do?"

"Have you a knife?" asked Russ.

"A knife? Yes, but what good is that?"

"We've got to cut our way out--that's all."

Ruth and Alice looked at each other. They began to understand what it meant.

"Someone from Elk Lodge may come for us--if we don't get back,"

murmured the younger girl, in what was almost a whisper.

"Yes, they may, but it's dangerous to wait," said Paul. "It is cold in here, and it isn't getting any warmer. It's like being locked in a refrigerator. We've got to keep in motion or we'll freeze."

"Then let's tackle that block of ice at the entrance," suggested Russ.

"Get out your knife and we'll see if we can't cut a hole large enough to crawl through."

If you have tried to cut with a pocket knife even the small piece of ice which you get in your refrigerator, you can appreciate the task that confronted the two young men. A solid block of ice had slid down from some higher point, and had blocked the opening to the odd cavern. But the two were not daunted. They realized the necessity of getting out, and that within a short time. Though they were all warmly dressed, the air of the cavern was chilly, to say the least.

"Keep moving, girls!" called Russ to Ruth and Alice, as he and Paul chipped away at the ice. "This exercise will keep us warm; but you need to do something to keep your blood in circulation. Here, take my coat!"

he called, as he arose from his knees, and tossed the garment to Ruth.

"I shall do nothing of the sort!" she answered, promptly. "You need it yourself."

"No, I don't," he replied, earnestly. "It only bothers me when I try to cut the ice. Please take it."

"But I can't get it on over my cloak."

"Yes, you can. Put it around your shoulders. I'll show you how." And he did it quickly, wrapping it warmly around her.

"Here, Alice, you take mine!" cried Paul, as he saw what his companion had done. "You need it more than I do, and I can't get at that ice with a big coat like this on."

In spite of her protests he put it about her, and the added warmth of the garments was comforting to the girls.