"Come on!" he shouted, half smothered by the snow he was pawing out. "Here's a hole."
"Oh, Sammy! suppose there should be something in there?" gasped Tess, her lips close to his ear.
At this suggestion Master Sammy drew back with some precipitation.
"Aw, Tess! what d'you want to say such things to a feller for?" he growled. "If there is anything in there we'll find it out soon enough."
Dot's sharp ears had heard something of this. She shrieked:
"Oh! Is it mice? I hm afraid of mice, and I won't go in there till you drive them all out, Sammy."
"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" murmured Sammy, with vast disgust. "Don't girls beat everything?"
"I don't care! I don't like mice," reiterated the smallest Corner House girl.
"Huh!" declared Sammy, wickedly, "maybe there'll be wolves under there."
"Wolfs? Well, I haven't my Alice-doll here, so I don't care about wolfs. But mice I am afraid of!"
At that Sammy took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and dived out of sight. He found that there was quite a sharp incline over hard snow to the bottom of the hole. All around the trunk of the tree, and next to it, was bare, hard ground. It made a roomy shelter, and it was just as warm as any house could be without a fire.
There was a quantity of dry and dead branches under here to scratch him and tear at his clothing. Sammy broke these off as he crawled around the tree, making the way less difficult for the little girls when they should enter.
A little light entered by the hole down which he had plunged. It made the interior of the strange shelter of a murky brownness, not at all helpful in "seeing things."
Sammy was quite sure there was no wolf housed in here; but about the mice or other small rodents he was not so sure.
However, he called to the little girls cheerfully to come down, and Dot immediately scrambled in, feet first. Tess followed her sister with less precipitation. Like Sammy, she felt the burden of their situation much more than did Dot. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," was Dot's opinion.
Sammy crawled out again and rescued the sled which was already buried in the snow. He dragged it to the opening and left it right over the hole so as to keep the snow from drifting in upon them.
"But it makes it so dark, Sammy!" said Tess, a little sharply.