“You must sleep!” insisted Loseis. “It is to-night that the real danger will come.”
“You sleep first,” said Conacher, “and I’ll promise to match whatever you do, later.”
Towards the end of the afternoon the sky cleared, and the grass of the little square steamed up in the warmth of the late sun.
“I’d give something to be able to run down to the river and back to stretch my legs,” said Conacher longingly.
“Every foot of the flat is commanded from the bench to the north,” said Loseis sharply.
“Very little danger of getting hit if I zigzagged,” said Conacher, partly to tease her.
Loseis changed her tactics. “Very well, I’ll come too,” she said.
“Not on your life!” said Conacher; and the subject was dropped.
They ate their supper; the sun went down; and the great stillness descended. Conacher closed and barred the door then; and went back to the kitchen window. The window was open; and the slender black barrel of his rifle stuck out across the thick log that formed its sill. Accustomed as they were to the evening stillness, in this tense hour it struck awe into their breasts as if it was the first time. They had an indefinable feeling that whatever It was, It would come in this hushed moment. Loseis was at her window; Mary-Lou was crouched on the floor at the back of the room with her hands pressed to her mouth.
Presently they heard that sound which is always associated with the sunset stillness of the Northwest; the long-drawn, intolerably mournful howl of a coyote; a sound calculated to shake stretched nerves. It rose startlingly close; in fact from the ravine through which the creek flowed behind the men’s house opposite.