At last Carney stroked the animal's head reassuringly, saying: "You're quite right, pal—it's none of our business. Besides, we're a pair of old grannies imagining things."
But as he lifted to the saddle, Bulldog, like the horse, felt a compelling inclination to go beyond the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridge to camp for the night.
Even as they climbed to a higher level of flat land, from back on the trail that was now lost in the deepening gloom, came the howl of a wolf; and then, from somewhere beyond floated the answering call of the dog-wolf's mate—a whimpering, hungry note in her weird wail.
"Bleat, damn you!" Carney cursed softly; "if you bother us I'll sit by with a gun and watch Patsy boy kick you to death."
As if some genii of the hills had taken up and sent on silent waves his challenge, there came filtering through the pines and birch a snarling yelp.
"By gad!" and Carney cocked his ear, pulling the horse to a stand.
Then in the heavy silence of the wooded hills he pushed on again muttering, "There's something wrong about that wolf howl—it's different."
Where a big pine had showered the earth with cones till the covering was soft, and deep, and springy, and odorous like a perfumed mattress of velvet, he hesitated; but the buckskin, in the finer animal reasoning, pleaded with little impatient steps and shakes of the head that they push on.
Carney yielded, saying softly: "Go on, kiddie boy; peace of mind is good dope for a sleep."
So it was ten o'clock when the two travellers, Carney and Pat, camped in an open, where the moon, like a silver mirror, bathed the earth in reassuring light. Here the buckskin had come to a halt, filled his lungs with the perfumed air in deep draughts, and turning his head half round had waited for his partner to dismount.