"Now listen to me!" advised Polly, shaking a finger at the three girls. "First of all, Anne and Bob must go and watch the fires, then unpack the panniers, and next make beds of the tips--you know how, Anne?" "I've watched the school children at Bear Forks weave it, so I'm sure I can make them, too," replied Anne. "Good! You stick the little stem-ends under the soft fuzz of the others just laid. The principal thing is not to have hard prods hurting the body, and the tips will take care of the springs and softness, all right," said Polly. "While Anne is making the beds, Bob can fix up odds and ends of spruce and leaves in the 'fingers' for the horses' beds--a bed in each finger, Bob. If the animals are comfortably bedded down they will be fresh in the morning. And if we hide them in those fingers the scent will not be so apt to reach a grizzly or lion should any prowl about to-night." "Where shall I place the spruce beds for us?" asked Anne. "Fix up two on each side of the cave as near the entrance as possible, Anne. We need air and the warmth from the fires. Then, too, we can hear any wild beast that may prowl around to-night," advised Polly. "If Nolla wants to go with me she takes _second_ place, see!" Eleanor laughed and said, "Anywhere as long as we start!" "Polly, first I want you to promise me not to be reckless in going through that tunnel. If you meet with the slightest danger or hazard, promise to back right out again," begged Anne. "All right, Anne, I promise, but my shoes will mar my follower's beauty if I back down on her face." Thus joking to make little of the danger, Polly started in through the hole. Eleanor followed and the two older girls stood watching until not a sound, or ray of the torch, could be seen. Then they went to the front of the cave to replenish the fires and prepare supper. CHAPTER XIV OLD MONTRESOR'S LEGACY "I'm afraid to fix the beds in those finger caves, Anne," whimpered Barbara, coming over to where the young woman was weaving the beds of spruce. "What is there to be afraid of? The burros and horses won't hurt you, and they are too weary with this day's troubles to bother about kicking or trampling you. However, you can do this, if you like, and I will make up the beds for the beasts." The spruce beds were being made--Anne showing Barbara how to lay the tips in rows as wide as the bed was to be, then folding under the sticks of the second row to run under the tips of the first row, and so on, until the length of the bed was made. This work finished, and the bedding for the horses arranged in the "fingers" as Polly had directed, the two girls stood near the entrance of the cave, wondering what possibly could have happened to keep Polly and Eleanor so long. "I just felt in my bones that it was an awful risk to go into the black hole of the unknown!" cried Barbara.