"O-h-h! Peggy, Peggy! I'm frightened!" wailed the girl aviator's chum.
"Frightened? Of what dear?" asked Peggy wide awake in an instant.
"I—I don't just know," quavered Jess, "but, Oh, Peggy, you'll think I'm an awful 'fraid cat, but I'm absolutely certain I heard footsteps, stealthy footsteps outside just now."
"Nonsense, girlie. It must have been a nightmare," rejoined Peggy with sharp assurance.
"I might have thought so," went on Jess, "but I looked out through the flap of the tent to make sure and I'm certain as that I'm standing here now that I saw some figures on horseback over by the water hole."
"Perhaps another party of horse hunters," suggested Peggy soothingly.
"But, Peggy dear, they made hardly any noise. That is, the horses I mean. I heard men's footsteps, but after a minute they mounted and rode off, and—oh, it was too ghostly for anything—they made no noise at all."
"You mean you couldn't hear any sound of the ponies' hoofs?" asked
Peggy incredulously.
"No, they moved in absolute silence. Peggy, you don't think it was anything supernatural, do you?"
For answer Peggy drew her revolver from under her pillow and tiptoed to the tent flap. It faced the water hole and in the bright white moonlight a clear view of it could be obtained. But after a prolonged scrutiny Jess's plucky chum was unable to make out any objects other than the usual ones appertaining to the camp.