They comprehended the sense of this advice, but could not manage to act upon it, as the drifts of snow and ice made it impossible to jump from the saddle, or lean over to hold to anything.
By this time, everything was hidden from sight and even the foremost rider looked ghostlike in the gray light and snow. The trail was obliterated by the drifts and the going was slippery and slow.
"We've simply got to make that timber, girls!" shouted Polly, more to encourage than to urge, as she knew the beasts were doing their utmost.
The three other girls, too cold and frightened to speak, clung to their animals hopelessly. Noddy seemed imbued with supernatural powers, for she never made a miss-step or swerved from the trail, although it was invisible. This instinct of scent, so marvelous in these little burros, proved the salvation of the adventurers.
Then darkness fell completely and the storm broke loose in its fierce madness, so confusing the chain of horses that they stamped and turned until the rope was so tangled that the riders were threatened with being thrown. Even in that awful moment, Polly was glad she tied the beasts to-gether, for surely one or another of them would have bolted or strayed to doom with its rider.
Noddy seemed the only animal to keep her sense. As the other horses snorted and wheeled, Polly cried desperately:
"Noddy, Noddy! Can't you help us out?"
With a tremendous spurt of strength the little burro pulled herself free from the tangle, dragging Choko along, too. The other horses soon calmed down again and followed in the wake.
A glassy surface had formed over everything, so that a slip would prove extremely dangerous on that steep slide, but Noddy plodded along as if she knew that the responsibility of all depended upon her accuracy in trailing. The girls had to trust blindly to the burro's sixth sense, as no one could see whether a yawning chasm or a rocky projection was directly before them.
"Polly, I'm falling! I can't stick on another moment!" cried Anne, her voice reaching Polly, as the wind blew in that direction.