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Page 33
"Where ARE you?" shrieked Betsy.
"I don't know!" came Molly's sobbing voice. "I just moved the least
little bit out of the road, and slipped on the ice and began to slide
and I couldn't stop myself and I fell down into a deep hole!"
Betsy's head felt as though her hair were standing up straight on end
with horror. Molly must have fallen down into the Wolf Pit! Yes, they
were quite near it. She remembered now that big white-birch tree stood
right at the place where the brook tumbled over the edge and fell into
it. Although she was dreadfully afraid of falling in herself, she went
cautiously over to this tree, feeling her way with her foot to make sure
she did not slip, and peered down into the cavernous gloom below. Yes,
there was Molly's little face, just a white speck. The child was crying,
sobbing, and holding up her arms to Betsy.
"Are you hurt, Molly?"
"No. I fell into a big snow-bank, but I'm all wet and frozen and I want
to get out! I want to get out!"
Betsy held on to the birch-tree. Her head whirled. What SHOULD she do!
"Look here, Molly," she called down, "I'm going to run back along to the
right road and back to the house and get Uncle Henry. He'll come with a
rope and get you out!"
At this Molly's crying rose to a frantic scream. "Oh, Betsy, don't leave
me here alone! Don't! Don't! The wolves will get me! Betsy, DON'T leave
me alone!" The child was wild with terror.
"But I CAN'T get you out myself!" screamed back Betsy, crying herself.
Her teeth were chattering with the cold.
"Don't go! Don't go!" came up from the darkness of the pit in a piteous
howl. Betsy made a great effort and stopped crying. She sat down on a
stone and tried to think. And this is what came into her mind as a
guide: "What would Cousin Ann do if she were here? She wouldn't cry. She
would THINK of something."
Betsy looked around her desperately. The first thing she saw was the big
limb of a pine-tree, broken off by the wind, which half lay and half
slantingly stood up against a tree a little distance above the mouth of
the pit. It had been there so long that the needles had all dried and
fallen off, and the skeleton of the branch with the broken stubs looked
like ... yes, it looked like a ladder! THAT was what Cousin Ann would have
done!
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Molly!" she called wildly down the pit,
warm all over in excitement. "Now listen. You go off there in a corner,
where the ground makes a sort of roof. I'm going to throw down something
you can climb up on, maybe."
"Ow! Ow, it'll hit me!" cried poor little Molly, more and more
frightened. But she scrambled off under her shelter obediently, while
Betsy struggled with the branch. It was so firmly imbedded in the snow
that at first she could not budge it at all. But after she cleared that
away and pried hard with the stick she was using as a lever she felt it
give a little. She bore down with all her might, throwing her weight
again and again on her lever, and finally felt the big branch
perceptibly move. After that it was easier, as its course was down hill
over the snow to the mouth of the pit. Glowing, and pushing, wet with
perspiration, she slowly maneuvered it along to the edge, turned it
squarely, gave it a great shove, and leaned over anxiously. Then she
gave a great sigh of relief! Just as she had hoped, it went down sharp
end first and stuck fast in the snow which had saved Molly from broken
bones. She was so out of breath with her work that for a moment she
could not speak. Then, "Molly, there! Now I guess you can climb up to
where I can reach you."
Molly made a rush for any way out of her prison, and climbed, like the
little practiced squirrel that she was, up from one stub to another to
the top of the branch. She was still below the edge of the pit there,
but Betsy lay flat down on the snow and held out her hands. Molly took
hold hard, and, digging her toes into the snow, slowly wormed her way up
to the surface of the ground.
It was then, at that very moment, that Shep came bounding up to them,
barking loudly, and after him Cousin Ann striding along in her rubber
boots, with a lantern in her hand and a rather anxious look on her face.
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