Around them the wind still shrieked, coming in gusts now and then that utterly drowned the voices of the girls. Rhoda seemed to have great confidence, but her friends felt that their situation was quite desperate.
The deeper they went into the gulch, however, the more they became sheltered from the wind. This was merely a slash in the hillside; it was not a canyon. Rhoda told them there was no farther exit to the place; it was merely a pocket in the hill.
"It has been used more than once as a corral for horses," she explained. "But there's an old bears' den up here—"
"Oh, mercy!" screamed Grace. "A bear!"
"Hasn't been one seen about here since I was born," declared Rhoda quickly. "But that old den is just the place for us."
Within ten minutes they reached a huge boulder that had broken away from the west side of the gulch. Behind it was an opening among other rocks. Indeed, this whole rift in the hillside was a mass of broken rock. It was hard for the ponies to pick a path between the stones. And it had grown very dark, too.
The other girls would never have dared venture into the dark pocket behind that boulder had Rhoda not led them. She dismounted, and, seizing her pony's bridle, started around the huge rock and into the cavity.
"Must we take in the horses, too?" cried Bess. "I never!"
"I won't balk at a stable, if we can get out of this wind," Nan declared. "Go ahead, Gracie, dear. Don't cry. Walter will be all right."
"But do you think we shall be all right?" asked Bess of her chum, when Grace had started in behind Rhoda.