When Polly spoke of cutting balsam for beds, Anne offered to help, as she was so cold. "And leave me here alone?" cried Barbara. "Why don't you come with us?" asked Eleanor. "I'm dead! I can't do another thing!" "Then stay here and cheer the burros," said Eleanor. "I won't let every one of you go and leave me to be killed by a wild animal," shuddered Barbara, looking over her shoulder. "Nothing wild here, but you, Bob. However, you may light a fire for us, while we are gone," retorted Eleanor, unsympathetically. Without further comment, Barbara was left, and soon the girls were stripping the spruce which had blown over the ledge. Its green branches would make the softest of wild-wood beds. "It really was fortunate that both these trees came down when they did! We would have to remove them as obstacles to our going out in the morning, and I would have had to hunt well before I could have found such fine tinder! So I've really saved myself a double chopping!" said Polly, as they tied up the last bundle of evergreen branches and started the burros for the cave. "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. "Ah, I thought so--now I have it!" murmured Polly, finding a nest of leaves and soft feathers packed down with bits of fur and dry grass. "What have you found?" eagerly asked three voices. "The lair of a grizzly. I've got him!" cried Polly, triumphantly. Instantly, three girls screamed and turned to run, and Polly laughed.