Betty Ashton was so plainly talking at the present instant to gain time that the older girl did not pay the slightest attention to her; instead, she was thinking herself. Of course she or Betty could mount their pony and ride off somewhere to look for help, but then Esther had no fancy for being left alone in a snow-storm in a part of the country which she did not know in its present aspect and certainly under the circumstances she had no intention of leaving Betty to the same fate.
Imagination, however, was never one of Esther Clark’s strong points, although fortunately for them both now and in later years it was always a gift of the other girl’s.
“Better let me sit down again,” Betty suggested, letting go of her clasp on her friend; “and will you unhitch Fire Star and lead her here to me. Somehow I think it best for us to manage to get back on the road and find some sort of shelter up there under the trees until the worst of this storm is past.”
With Betty to think and Esther to accomplish, things usually moved swiftly. So five minutes later, half leading and half being led by the pony, Esther climbed the embankment on foot with Betty riding and clinging with both arms about Fire Star’s neck. Under a pine tree partly protected from the wind and snow by scrub pines growing only a few feet away, the girls found a temporary refuge. There they remained sheltered by the fur rug which Esther brought back on her second trip. The pony safely covered over with his own blanket stood hitched under another tree a short distance away.
Nevertheless, half an hour of waiting found the two girls shivering uncomfortably under their rug and losing courage with every passing moment, for the storm had not abated in the least and Betty was really suffering agonies with her foot, although she had removed her shoe, bathed her ankle in snow and bound it up in her own and Esther’s pocket handkerchiefs.
“Esther,” she said rather irritably, after a fresh paroxysm of pain had left her almost exhausted, “don’t you think that, as we have been Camp Fire girls living in the woods for the past six months, even though conditions do seem trying, we ought to do something and not just sit here in this limp fashion and be snowed under?”
Esther nodded, but made no sort of suggestion. She was so cold and worried about Betty that she hadn’t an idea in her mind save the haunting fear that if they continued long in their present situation they might actually be turned into icebergs.
However, Betty promptly gave her a pinch that was realistic enough to be felt in spite of all her frozenness. “Wake up, Esther, dear, and if you are really so cold, child, just warm yourself by your nose, it certainly is red enough. Now as you girls have always said I dearly loved to boss, please, won’t you let me be general of this expedition and you do what I say since I am too lame to help?”
Again Esther nodded. She generally had done whatever Betty Ashton had asked of her since the day of her coming to the great Ashton homestead in Woodford a little more than half a year before. But as Betty outlined her plan Esther grew interested and in half a moment jumping up began stamping her feet and swinging her arms to get the warmth and vigor back into her body.
“Why, Betty Ashton, of course we can manage even to stay here in the woods all night and not have such a horrid time! It won’t be so difficult, I’ll have things fixed in the least little while.”