the brush.

Ruth's matches were dry and they heaped up the leaves and rubbish
and started a blaze. The other girls brought more fuel and soon a hot
fire was leaping against the side of the rock and its circle of
warmth cheered them. They got green branches of spruce and pine and
brushed away the snow and banked it up in a wall all about the
platform, which served them for a camp. Then they scraped the fire
out from the rock, threw on more branches (for the green ones would
burn now that the fire was so hot) and crowded in between the blaze
and the rock.

"This is just scrumptious!" declared Heavy. "We sha'n't freeze now."

"Not if we can keep the fire going," said Helen.

Being warm, they all tried to be cheerful thereafter. They told
stories, they sang their school songs, and played guessing games.

Meanwhile, the wind shrieked through the forest above their
"hideout," and the snow continued to fall as though it had no
intention of ever stopping. The hours dragged by toward dark--and an
early dark it would be on this stormy day.

"Oh, if we only had something to eat!" groaned Heavy. "Wish I'd
saved my snow-shoes."

"What for?" demanded Bell. "What possible good could they have been
to you, silly?"