But there was nothing there, and at Mollie’s impatient command she lay down again. Her fingers stole under the edge of the blanket where she had hidden something. It was Betty’s toy pistol!
Toward the middle of the night Grace’s eyes sprang wide open as though she had touched a spring. The moment before she had been heavily asleep, now she was as wide awake as though she had never slept at all.
What was it that sent terrified chills chasing up and down her spine? Was it the rhythmic patter-patter of rain on the tautly stretched tarpaulin? That would be enough to wake her surely.
But no, that was not all. She had heard a noise, a peculiar, shuffling noise that had penetrated even through her sleep, a noise like some man or animal circling the tent.
At first it seemed almost impossible for her to move. She felt as though she were in the grip of a nightmare where she had no control whatever over her muscles. She tried to call to Mollie, but her voice died in a weak little gasp in her throat.
By a great effort she finally succeeded in dragging herself to a sitting position. Then she waited, her hand at her throat, her eyes striving to pierce the gloom behind the smoldering embers of the fire.
She saw nothing, heard nothing but the rhythmic drip-drip of the rain. The night seemed suddenly and curiously still as though, like her, it were holding its breath to listen.
Then the silence was broken by Mollie’s voice, soft and husky with sleep.
“What in the world——” she began, but Grace caught her arm in a tight grip.
“Listen!” she commanded.