“Who? Who-o? Who-o-o?”
“Oh! Who is he?” gasped Dot, clinging close to her sister.
“Mr. Owl,” said Tess, promptly. “You know you’ve heard about owls, Dot Kenway!”
“But—but I didn’t know they could talk,” breathed the smallest Corner House girl, with a sigh. “Tessie, I can’t walk any farther,” she suddenly announced. “It isn’t only that funny bone in my back; but my ankles are breaking right off—so now!”
“But—but there isn’t any good place for us to stop till our automobile comes along,” hesitated Tess.
“I don’t care, Tess Kenway! I’ve got to stop!”
That settled it. At the edge of the dark wood the two little girls crept up on a grassy bank, between two roots of a great tree, sheltered at the back by a thick brush clump, and there they sat, clinging to each other’s hand.
They were too frightened to talk. Too alarmed even to weep any more.
Around them, when they were still, scurried the little creatures of the night—the field mice, and the moles, perhaps, and the baby rabbits, and other small animals who shiver—as Dot did—when the great owl swoops low, crying his eternal question:
“Who? Who-o? Who-o-o shall I take for supper?”