"All right—Old Dear," answered Hippy solemnly. "I was going to tell you that you are the apple of my eye, but, being a peach, you can't very well be an apple, so we will let it go at 'Old Dear.'"
Joe glared through her spectacles. The sharp lines of the rugged face of the forest woman gradually melted into a smile, the first smile that any member of that party had ever seen there.
"Go on with ye!" she retorted laughing despite her attempt to be stern. "I ought to sick the bear on ye, but I ain't goin' to."
CHAPTER XIII
A BLAZED WARNING
"Well, we gave them a run, didn't we?" crowed Hippy.
"I reckon ye'd better pack and git out of here right lively," advised the guide.
Tom Gray agreed that Peg Tatem would miss no opportunity to take revenge on the Overland Riders for what they had done to him, and it was decided to break camp and move at once, the forest woman being confident that she could keep in the right direction once she found a lumber road that lay to the right of them a couple of miles away.