Prodding carefully again, she took the next step, and
so on. Sometimes, feeling suspiciously, she would essay a step and as
suddenly bring back her hoof before breaking into the pit. Thus taking
one assured step after another, she finally reached the beginning of
the ledge where Choko had landed.
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.
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