"Snakes!" whispered Rosemary with a sudden prickling of her scalp. "Do they go around at night, I wonder? Sarah would know."
But Sarah, the naturalist, was safely asleep in her own bed. Rosemary suddenly envied both her sisters. She remembered that Mrs. Hildreth had spoken of the warfare she waged against rats which tried to carry off the young poultry at night—Rosemary, in imagination, could picture a procession of rats running over her as she slept, on their way to the hen houses.
She got gingerly to her feet, straining her eyes to see the moving object. What could it be? Something brushed past her, close to her face. Instantly Winnie's horror of bats came to the girl's nervous mind.
"If the screen door is unlocked, I'm going in," whispered Rosemary, gathering her kimono tightly about her. "Sarah may like animals but I don't."
She started as the mournful cry of a hoot owl sounded in the distance—and then something cold and wet touched her hand! With one bound Rosemary cleared the quilt and ran like a deer across the grass. The shadowy object she had seen came toward her, moving slowly. Rosemary dodged, tripped on her kimono and fell.
She was up again in a moment and running again, her breath coming in little sobbing gasps. Jack Welles had once said that she did not "happen to be the screaming kind of girl" and though terrified now she made no outcry. She gained the porch step, tugged frantically at the screen door and felt it open in her grasp. She pitched forward, striking her knee against a chair and felt herself caught in a strong, firm clasp. For a moment she struggled furiously and silently and then realization came to her.
"Oh, Hugh!" she cried. "Hugh! There's something out there!"