Of
course," she added, as the girls began to grope eagerly among the dirt
and debris at their feet for stones sharp enough to answer the purpose,
"the mouth of the cave may be choked up too solidly with dirt and
underbrush and things for us to get through. But in that case we'd just
have to think up some other way, that's all."

"I've got a peach," cried Mollie slangily, as her hand struck a big
stone sharp enough to serve her purpose. "I ought to be able to dig my
way through the side of a house with this fellow."

"And here's the very one that got too familiar with my toe," said Grace,
as she picked up another serviceable stone. "I'm going to get even with
it now. I shall make it work as it never worked before."

After much groping and knocking of heads together, Betty and Amy also
armed themselves with imitation shovels, and so the work began.

And it was work indeed. For what seemed hours to the anxious girls they
toiled, digging sometimes with the stones, sometimes in desperation with
their hands until it seemed to them they must have dug their way half
through the mountainside. And still that blank wall of dirt, that
impenetrable darkness, that stubborn barrier between them and the
blessed sunshine. Amy was the first to give way.

She sank back on the dank floor of the cave and buried her face in her
dirt-stained hands.

"We'll never get out of here!" she sobbed. "And I'm st-starving to
d-death!"

CHAPTER XII

IN THE DARKNESS

Now the girls had been hungry before the accident occurred and, it being
several hours since then, they were, by this time, as any one could
readily see, in a rather bad state. Therefore, Amy's complaint was very
unfortunate and, had it not been for Betty, it might have ruined the
morale of the girls completely.

"Good gracious, Amy, don't talk about starving to death," cried Mollie,
dismayed. "That's coming too near the truth for comfort. Oh, this
miserable stone. It's cutting clear through my hand!"

"And my back is nearly broken," said Grace, adding, as she turned
ferociously upon the still-sobbing Amy: "Stop that crying, Amy
Blackford. Don't you know it is catching?" and a suspicious break at the
end of her sentence, proved the truth of the assertion.

"Girls, please don't," begged Betty, still digging automatically at the
stubborn wall of stones and dirt. "If you all begin to cry, then we
might just as well throw up our hands and say we are beaten."

It was not