"I'm just frozen, and I wish you would hurry and build a fire!" cried
Barbara, petulantly, when the girls came within hearing.
No one replied, but Eleanor was furious, while the others were impatient with the girl.
"I was so hungry that I tried to get a sandwich out of the pannier, but something made a noise back in the cave, and I'm sure it was a rattle-snake buzzing!" added Barbara, trying to win sympathy from the stony-faced companions.
"Pooh! You've got rattle-snake on the brain! It would have done you good to get out there with us and do some rattling of the ax on the wood!"
"Why, Nolla! How unkind you are since we came to this awful country!" cried Barbara, not able to find a handkerchief, and sniffing audibly.
"Here! Use this to amuse yourself with while we work!" said Eleanor, taking a neatly folded handkerchief from her coat pocket.
When Eleanor turned again to the others, she found Anne had unharnessed the burros and piled the saddles upon a stone projection near the opening of the cave.
There were numerous little finger-like caves that branched out from the main cave, but they led nowhere and seemed empty. Polly noticed that the dry leaves and loose shale scattered about appeared to have been undisturbed for months. Some of the leaves were from the harvest of the previous fall, so she felt sure no beast had prowled about the "fingers."
Coming to a much larger extension than any of the others had been,
Polly called out: "This must be the thumb of the hand!"
"Sure it isn't the arm!" laughed Eleanor.