"That is because the rear side of the lean-to is closed and the front open. The heat therefore remains in the lean-to. Even a low fire will keep one warm in such a shelter in the coldest of winter nights," Grace explained to her companions.
In the meantime Tom and Hippy were discussing the attack of the previous night, and Tom Gray was cautioning Hippy to be on the lookout all the time and see to it that the Overland girls were protected.
"We are getting into rough country. I don't need to tell you that," said Tom. "Law is quite a way removed from us, and it takes time to get the law operating in the Big Woods country. By the time it does get working, the guilty ones generally are out of reach. I wish we had got in touch with Willy Horse and hired him to join the outfit."
"Leave it to Henry and Hippy," laughed Lieutenant Wingate. "What those two 'H's' can't do, he couldn't. Then again, we have Hindenburg. Do you think that fellow Tatem had anything to do with what happened last night?"
Tom said he knew of no good reason why the foreman of Forty-three should have wished to injure them.
"The attack looks to me like a lumberjack's revenge but I can't account for it. I have decided to leave you in the morning. Grace has a duplicate of my forestry map, and will know where I am most of the time. I'll look in on you from time to time, and about the first of the month I shall make my headquarters on the Little Big Branch where you folks are going to camp for a few weeks. Be careful of fire, and if you are visited by a fire warden tell him who you are. One cannot be too particular about saving the forests, and a little carelessness might cause a fire loss of thousands of dollars before the blaze could be stopped."
"We want to go to bed," interrupted Emma. "How are we going to do so with one side of the house out?"
"Hang two blankets over the front, please, Hippy. Take them down after the girls have turned in. I will look after the ponies; then you and I will hit the pines," directed Tom, rising.
The forest woman was hanging up the mess kits to dry when Tom and Hippy went out to water and rub down the ponies. She beckoned them to wait.
"I been thinkin' 'bout what ye said of Peg Tatem, Cap'n Gray, and I don't like it," she said in a tone low enough to prevent being overheard by the girls, who were preparing for bed. "Peg must have been mad 'bout somethin' and I reckon it would be healthy for us to git out of here in the mornin' and camp as far away from Forty-three as we kin. What do ye say, Cap'n?"