The three other girls, too cold and frightened to speak, clung to their
animals hopelessly. Noddy seemed imbued with supernatural powers, for
she never made a miss-step or swerved from the trail, although it was
invisible. This instinct of scent, so marvelous in these little burros,
proved the salvation of the adventurers.
Then darkness fell completely and the storm broke loose in its fierce
madness, so confusing the chain of horses that they stamped and turned
until the rope was so tangled that the riders were threatened with
being thrown. Even in that awful moment, Polly was glad she tied the
beasts to-gether, for surely one or another of them would have bolted
or strayed to doom with its rider.
Noddy seemed the only animal to keep her sense. As the other horses
snorted and wheeled, Polly cried desperately:
"Noddy, Noddy! Can't you help us out?"
With a tremendous spurt of strength the little burro pulled herself
free from the tangle, dragging Choko along, too. The other horses soon
calmed down again and followed in the wake.
A glassy surface had formed over everything, so that a slip would prove
extremely dangerous on that steep slide, but Noddy plodded along as if
she knew that the responsibility of all depended upon her accuracy in
trailing. The girls had to trust blindly to the burro's sixth sense, as
no one could see whether a yawning chasm or a rocky projection was
directly before them.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169