And then she broke into a little one-step dance, whistling her own accompaniment. Surely it was a strange proceeding, and yet it came natural to Alice. The young men, too, took heart at her manner of accepting the situation, and chopped away harder than ever at the ice barrier.
"Think we'll make it?" asked Paul of Russ, in a low voice, when they had been working for some time.
"We've got to make it," answered the other. "We've just got to get the girls out."
"Of course," was the brief reply, as if that was all there was to it.
And yet, in their hearts, Russ and Paul felt a nameless fear. Ice, which melts so easily under the warm and gentle influence of the sun, is exceedingly hard when it is maintained at a low temperature, and truly it was sufficiently cold in the cave.
Now and then the boys stopped to clear away the accumulation of ice splinters, and to note how they were progressing. Yet they could hardly tell, for they did not know how thick was the chunk of ice that covered the cave opening. The edges of the opening itself were several feet in thickness, and if this hole was completely filled it would mean many hours of work with the pitifully inadequate tools at their disposal.
"How are we coming on?" asked Paul.
Russ looked back at the girls who, in one corner of the cave, were pacing up and down to drive away the deadly cold.
"Not very well," he returned, in a low voice. "Don't talk—let's work."
He did not like to think of what might happen.