"You'd better go on without me," she cried, half sobbing and half laughing.
The doctor was very uncomfortable. Not for worlds would he have put foot outside the trolley rails, but something had to be done.
"Let's make a human ladder," suggested Molly, "as they do in melodramas. I'll go first. Nance, you take my foot and someone hold on to yours and so on. Then, Judy can climb up, catching hold of us."
The doctor considered this a good scheme and the human chain was accordingly formed, the doctor himself grasping the ankle of the last volunteer, who happened to be Judith Blount. But hardly had Judy commenced the upward climb, when the doctor's heels went over his head and the entire human ladder found itself huddled together at the foot of the embankment.
"It's a case of every mon for himself and the divvel tak' the hindmost," exclaimed the doctor, sitting up stiffly and rubbing his shins. "Help yoursel's, lassies. I can do nae mair."
Some of them reached the track at last and some of them didn't, and those who couldn't make it were Molly and Judith Blount.
"You'll have to follow along as best you can down there," called Mrs. McLean, grasping her husband's arm. "We'll keep an eye on you from above."
Once more the belated revellers started on their way, while Molly and Judith Blount pursued a difficult path between a frozen creek and the trolley embankment.