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Page 31
"Do coyotes come near camp?" she queried.
"Shore. Sometimes they pull your pillow out from under your head," replied
Flo, laconically.
Carley did not ask any more questions. Natural history was not her favorite
study and she was sure she could dispense with any first-hand knowledge of
desert beasts. She thought, however, she heard one of the men say, "Big
varmint prowlin' round the sheep." To which Hutter replied, "Reckon it was
a bear." And Glenn said, "I saw his fresh track by the lake. Some bear!"
The heat from the fire made Carley so drowsy that she could scarcely hold
up her head. She longed for bed even if it was out there in the open.
Presently Flo called her: "Come. Let's walk a little before turning in."
So Carley permitted herself to be led to and fro down an open aisle between
some cedars. The far end of that aisle, dark, gloomy, with the bushy
secretive cedars all around, caused Carley apprehension she was ashamed to
admit. Flo talked eloquently about the joys of camp life, and how the
harder any outdoor task was and the more endurance and pain it required,
the more pride and pleasure one had in remembering it. Carley was weighing
the import of these words when suddenly Flo clutched her arm. "What's
that?" she whispered, tensely.
Carley stood stockstill. They had reached the furthermost end of that
aisle, but had turned to go back. The flare of the camp fire threw a wan
light into the shadows before them. There came a rustling in the brush, a
snapping of twigs. Cold tremors chased up and down Carley's back.
"Shore it's a varmint, all right. Let's hurry," whispered Flo.
Carley needed no urging. It appeared that Flo was not going to run. She
walked fast, peering back over her shoulder, and, hanging to Carley's arm,
she rounded a large cedar that had obstructed some of the firelight. The
gloom was not so thick here. And on the instant Carley espied a low, moving
object, somehow furry, and gray in color. She gasped. She could not speak.
Her heart gave a mighty throb and seemed to stop.
"What--do you see?" cried Flo, sharply, peering ahead. "Oh! . . . Come,
Carley. Run!"
Flo's cry showed she must nearly be strangled with terror. But Carley was
frozen in her tracks. Her eyes were riveted upon the gray furry object. It
stopped. Then it came faster. It magnified. It was a huge beast. Carley had
no control over mind, heart, voice, or muscle. Her legs gave way. She was
sinking. A terrible panic, icy, sickening, rending, possessed her whole
body.
The huge gray thing came at her. Into the rushing of her ears broke
thudding sounds. The thing leaped up. A horrible petrifaction suddenly made
stone of Carley. Then she saw a gray mantlelike object cast aside to
disclose the dark form of a man. Glenn!
"Carley, dog-gone it! You don't scare worth a cent," he laughingly
complained.
She collapsed into his arms. The liberating shock was as great as had been
her terror. She began to tremble violently. Her hands got back a sense of
strength to clutch. Heart and blood seemed released from that ice-banded vise.
"Say, I believe you were scared," went on Glenn, bending over her.
"Scar-ed!" she gasped. "Oh--there's no word--to tell--what I was!"
Flo came running back, giggling with joy. "Glenn, she shore took you for a
bear. Why, I felt her go stiff as a post! . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! Carley, now how
do you like the wild and woolly?"
"Oh! You put up a trick on me!" ejaculated Carley. "Glenn, how could you?
. . . Such a terrible trick! I wouldn't have minded something reasonable.
But that! Oh, I'll never forgive you!"
Glenn showed remorse, and kissed her before Flo in a way that made some
little amends. "Maybe I overdid it," he said. "But I thought you'd have a
momentary start, you know, enough to make you yell, and then you'd see
through it. I only had a sheepskin over my shoulders as I crawled on hands
and knees."
"Glenn, for me you were a prehistoric monster--a dinosaur, or something,"
replied Carley.
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