Page:Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp.djvu/179

Rh the stout one, and in a moment Ruth had slipped over the edge of the bank and had landed besid Heavy.

"It's all right, girls!" shouted Ruth at once. She could see that the shelf widened a little way beyond, and was overhung by a huge boulder in the bank, making a really admirable shelter—not exactly a cave, but a large-sized cavity.

After some urging, Lluella and Belle allowed themselves to be lowered by Madge and Helen over the brink of the bank. Then Helen herself slid down, and then the oldest girl. When Miss Steele landed upon the shelf beside them, she cried:

"This is just a mercy! Another five minutes up there in the wind and snow, and I don't believe I could have walked at all. My, my! ain't I cold!"

The six girls cowered together under the overhanging rock. The snow blew in a thick cloud over their heads and they heard it sifting down through the trees below them. They were upon a steep side-hill—the wall of a steep gully, perhaps. How deep it was they had no means of knowing; but several good-sized trees sprouted out of the hill near their refuge. They could see the dim forms of these now and then as the snow-cloud changed.

But although they were out of the beat of the