"He will if he remembers what your father told us," said Bess.

"What's that?" demanded her chum.

"Mr. Ham-Hammond said to lie do-own and hang on to the
grass-roots," stammered the almost breathless Bess. "And I guess
we'd better do that, too."

"Come on. I'll get you out of the wind," said Rhoda, jerking her
horse's head around.

The other animals followed. Whether the three Eastern girls were
willing to be led away by Rhoda or not, their mounts would
instinctively keep together.

Around them the wind still shrieked, coming in gusts now and then
that utterly drowned the voices of the girls. Rhoda seemed to have
great confidence, but her friends felt that their situation was
quite desperate.

The deeper they went into the gulch, however, the more they became
sheltered from the wind. This was merely a slash in the hillside;
it was not a canyon. Rhoda told them there was no farther exit to
the place; it was merely a pocket in the hill.

"It has been used more than once as a corral for horses," she
explained. "But there's an old bears' den up here--"

"Oh, mercy!" screamed Grace. "A bear!"