“Gentlemen first!” she said. “Anyway you’re bigger than I am, Ted.”
So Teddy, feeling as important as a boy always feels when he is protecting a girl that he likes, walked boldly into the cave, stretching a hand behind him for Billie to cling to.
“Come on, it’s all right,” he assured her. “You’ll get used to the darkness in a minute. The snow blinds you. Ouch! What was that?”
Billie gave a little choked scream and would have run out into the open again, had not Teddy’s grip on her hand prevented.
“Don’t get scared,” the boy said, and bent over to examine whatever it was he had stubbed his toe against. “I didn’t mean to yell like that, but, gosh, that thing did give my toe an awful wallop! I say, look at this!” and he held up an object that shone wanly white against the blackness of the cave.
Billie, whose eyes had become a little accustomed to the darkness, saw that what Teddy held looked like an old, broken water pitcher.
“A pitcher,” she said, adding disgustedly: “And that was what I was afraid of.”
At the entrance, this queer hole in the mountain had been so low that the two had been forced to stoop down to avoid knocking their heads on the roof of it. But now, as they felt their way cautiously, they found to their surprise that they could stand upright. The walls also seemed to have widened out and they realized with a thrill of excitement that they were in a real cave, dug into the side of the mountain.
In here it was darker than it had been at the entrance, and they had to feel their way about cautiously to avoid colliding with each other or the walls of the cave.
It was surprisingly warm and snug in there also, for the thick snow wrapped them in the warmest and fleeciest of blankets, and the only place for old Jack Frost to come in was the narrow entrance of the cave.