"Girls, what do you say to the suggestion that we make camp here until some time to-morrow?" questioned Anne. "We are in no hurry, except that we do not wish to be overtaken by Peg Tatem's gang, which, it doesn't seem probable that we shall be."
"Yes! Stay!" cried the Overlanders.
"Is that satisfactory to you, Mrs. Shafto?" asked Grace, turning to the guide.
"I kin stand it if ye kin."
"We stay," announced Grace. "Let's build our sheds after we have settled our breakfasts and are able to summon some ambition."
Their sleeping quarters were finished before dark, and then the girls rambled along the river, here and there startling a buck or a doe into sudden flight. There were no man-made trails here, no sounds other than the murmuring waters of the Little Big Branch and the voices of nature, to which Emma Dean listened, nodded or shook her head as if she and those voices were holding converse. The laughing teasing of her companions failed to swerve Emma from her newfound hobby.
That night, as they snuggled under their blankets, clear and cold out of the silence pealed a mournful howl, long-drawn, strange and full of the wild.
Nora and Anne buried their heads under the blankets to shut out the sound.
"What was that?" cried Elfreda.
"A wolf—an old she timber wolf—a varmint," answered the forest woman from her lean-to.