Polly jumped from her burro's back and went over to Choko. She removed the ax from the pack and chopped a way through the slender undergrowth which had grown up that season. "Yes, here's the blaze as plain as day! Any of you girls want to read it for me?" laughed Polly. The three curious girls jumped from their mounts and pushed a way over to the tree where they saw a queer mark made deep in the tree where the bark could not over-grow it. "What does it say, Poll!" asked Eleanor. "It means for us to turn to the left and follow the trail upwards!" said Polly, pointing to the signs. "I should think the ranchers would put up sign-posts to guide travelers!" said Barbara. "How long do you suppose a post would last in a mild little wind-storm that uproots trees and tosses them about like wisps of hay?" laughed Polly. "Oh, Polly! You surely are making fun of us!" said Eleanor, doubtfully. "No, indeed, she is not! In the three months' time I was at the Cobb School, I saw some terrific gales sweep over the country!" added Anne. But sign-posts and wind-storms were forgotten for the time when the horses came out on a strange road they had to travel. The wilderness of pine forest had been left on the right after leaving Lone Pine, and the trail led down gradually to a bottomland of brilliant green herbage. Directly over this emerald valley ran a corduroy roadway. "There must have been a brook under this at one time!" stated Eleanor, finding the logs partly embedded in caked mud. "No, this too, is built by our forest-rangers who help the timber jacks build these roads. You see, while frost holds good the heaviest tree trunks can be readily moved over icy swamp bottoms, but in the spring, when thaw and freshets begin, the bottoms are more like a marsh, or shallow lake, than anything else I know of. Then these corduroy roads are a make-shift for hard ground," explained Polly, while Noddy started to clip-clop over the firmly-set logs. "Why don't the men wait for the next frost?" asked Barbara. "Hoh! Don't you know the trees would be worthless if they were left for a season? Decay and mold or worms would destroy the finest wood. Besides, these logs, or poles, laid side by side in the mud, soon get to be as solid as a rock, for the mud, oozing up between the chinks of the logs, dries out and leaves them baked tight in the grooves." Having heard the way this novel roadway was made, the girls took a lively interest in crossing it. No more questions were asked until Polly reached the trail that led up through the forest. Then Eleanor spoke. "Polly, you're sure you know the road?" "We can't go very far wrong! If we keep to the trail we are bound to come out on the top--somewhere!" laughed Polly, giving Noddy her head in selecting a safe footing on the rough trail.