"Polly, I don't see how we can go much farther!" said Anne, who had never before been as high as this.
"Oh, we are only one-third of the way up, Anne," smiled Polly, swinging Noddy suddenly to one side to avoid a bowlder of rock that had rolled upon the trail.
After more arduous climbing, the horses unexpectedly came out into a vast clearing, called a "park" by the natives. It was acres in extent, fringed about by the heavy close growth of pines. The girls exclaimed at the beauty of the spot, for wild-mountain flowers grew profusely among the thick buffalo grass.
"Now, then, every one of you start at this point and hunt for the trail. I haven't been here since last summer when we went for that trapper and his pelts. I didn't look for the blaze then, but it was here, so we must find it to help us find the way out!" called Polly, as she guided Noddy slowly past the fringe of forest trees, looking carefully at each tree.
"Goodness, Polly! Do you ever expect to find an opening in this tangle of trees?" asked Barbara.
"We can if Polly says there's one!" declared Anne, riding her horse carefully in the opposite direction from Polly.
Eleanor permitted her burro to follow after Polly, as she hadn't the slightest idea of what the blaze or trail would look like. Consequently, she was directly behind Polly when she shouted, "I've found it!"
The other girls wheeled their horses and galloped over to the place where Polly was swinging the ax about her head.
With several good whacks, she chopped down enough young aspens to clear a way through the brush, thus exposing to view an old tree bearing a blaze over twenty years old.
"I'll show you how to count the age," said Polly, beginning at the outer bark and counting the rings plainly lined from the new bark into the tree until she reached the place where the blaze had been made.