"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.
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