Polly in the Southwest

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

The three girls were so frightened at what had happened that they were incapable of moving for a moment; consequently Eleanor was thrown against an aspen with such force that she had the breath knocked out of her. Polly had been half over the back of one horse, in order to work a blanket down to the other side, and she was carried along while clinging desperately to the mane of the beast she was upon. Dodo was flat in a snow-drift.

POLLY WAS CARRIED ALONG CLINGING DESPERATELY TO THE HORSE’S MANE.

Mrs. Courtney had been attending to Barnes’ injured foot, and now she sprang up and called aloud in sudden fear. “Polly!”

Jack left the axe where he had dropped it and started off hot-footed to catch up with the escaping animals. The snow impeded the hoofs of the leading horse, and he soon found that running away in the teeth of a blizzard was not the fun it was in town, when he began to cut capers for amusement to those around. He had not galloped more than a hundred yards before he began to breathe hard. The high altitude had a lot to do with this, too, but the beast knew nothing of altitudes. In the length of a few more yards he was glad enough to halt and try to catch his breath. This, naturally, stopped the other horses that were being dragged willynilly at the heels of their leader.

Jack ploughed through the broken snow as fast as he could lift his feet out of the clinging drifts, and after a hard sprint he caught up to the sweating animals. But now! how to turn them about? That was another problem, and he gazed in despair at the closely standing aspens which lined the sides of the trail.

Polly made a horn of her cupped hands and shouted at him. “Only one thing to do, Jack, and that is—cut down the aspens over there, instead of here. We’ll have to come and help you, and leave Mrs. Courtney with the guide; we’ll pick them up after we get the horses turned about.”

Jack signified he had understood, and then, holding fast to the bridle of the leading animal, he waited until Polly brought the axe. The other girls followed in Polly’s tracks, and, after a tiresome hike, they all went to work to remove the obstructing aspens. Jack now wielded the axe, with a zeal he had been unconscious of possessing, and the three girls worked in breaking down the younger growth of trees and throwing them back upon the trodden trail; since they would not return that way, but would lead the horses about the short turn they were making through the woods, it made little difference.

No one stopped to eat, though all were half-famished and half-frozen, as well. Mrs. Courtney tried to keep Barnes from being chilled, by helping him hop around upon one leg, keeping the injured one free from the ground. As Barnes was a heavy young man, and he had to lean upon his companion for support, she was thoroughly tired out by the time the horses were successfully led back through the narrow cleft made in the aspens. In fact, so narrow was it that many a tree-trunk scraped the sides of the horses as they were pulled and pushed and urged to go along to gain the good, though narrow, trail ahead.

This much was successfully accomplished at last, and the young people, who had had to chop and break down the aspens in order to get the horses turned about, heaved a sigh of gratitude when they halted the animals beside the guide.