"Oh! save her! save her!" Ruth Kenway cried.
"She's killed! I know she is!" wept Agnes, wringing her hands.
Joe Eldred and Wib Ketchell were as pale as they could be. None of the little group at the entrance moved for a full minute. Then Neale O'Neil brought them all to life with:
"She wasn't under that fall! Quick! 'round to the rear! We can save her."
"I tell you she's dead!" avowed Wilbur, hoarsely.
"Come on!" shouted Neale, and seized a shovel that stood leaning against the snow wall. "Come on, Joe! The roof's only fallen in the middle. Trix is back of that, I tell you!"
"Neale is right! Neale is right!" screamed Agnes. "Let's dig her out."
She and Ruth started after Neale O'Neil and Joe. Wilbur ran away in terror and did much to spread the senseless alarm throughout the neighborhood that half the school children in town were buried beneath the wreckage of the snow castle!
But it was bad enough—at first. The Corner House girls and their boy friends were not altogether sure that Trix was only barred from escape by the falling rubbish.
Neale and Joe attacked the rear wall of the structure with vigor, but the edge of their shovels was almost turned by the icy mass. Axes and crowbars would scarcely have made an impression on the hard-packed snow.