"There she goes!" cried Mr. Macksey, as his axe went through an opening and into the cave. "I've made the hole!" and he capered about like a boy, so delighted was he that he had been the first to bring aid to the imprisoned ones.
"Oh, now we can get out!" cried Ruth, as she saw the head of the axe come through.
"As if there had ever been any doubt of it," laughed Alice. She could laugh now, but even with all her gay spirits, there had been a time, not many minutes back, when it was quite a different story.
The hole once made, was soon enlarged, and then, when it was of sufficient size to enable a person to crawl through, Russ shouted to the rescuers;
"That'll do! Don't chop any more! We can wriggle out."
"Surely, yes," agreed Ruth, as the young moving picture operator looked to her for confirmation. "I'm not a bit fussy," she added. "I've done harder things than crawl on my hands and knees out of an ice cave."
"Don't chop any more!" called Paul, for Russ was leading Ruth to the opening.
"Come ahead!" called Mr. DeVere, and a moment later he was holding his daughter in his arms. Alice soon followed, and she too was clasped tightly.
"Hurray!" cried Mr. Switzer, as Russ and Paul emerged from their strange prison. "Dis is der best sight vot I have yet had in more as a month. Half a pretzel!" he exclaimed, holding out one of the queer, twisted things. He was never without them since the sled breakdown. He said they were his mascots.
There was a scene of rejoicing, and even the gloomy Mr. Sneed condescended to smile, and looked almost happy.