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!...Hal Ha! Hal 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.
It developed, upon their return to the campfire circle, that everybody had been in the joke; and they all derived hearty enjoyment from it.
1
Carley wondered if she were not so constituted that such trickery alienated her.Deep in her heart she resented being made to show her cowardice.But then she realized that no one had really seen any evidence of her state.It was fun to them.
Soon after this incident Hutter sounded what he called the roll-call for bed.Following Flo's instructions, Carley sat on their bed, pulled off her boots, folded coat and sweater at her head, and slid down under the blankets.How strange and hard a bed! Yet Carley had the most delicious sense of relief and rest she had ever experienced.She straightened out on her back with a feeling that she had never before appreciated the luxury of lying down.
Flo cuddled up to her in quite sisterly fashion, saying: "Now don't cover your head.If it rains I'll wake and pull up the tarp.Good night, Carley."And almost immediately she seemed to fall asleep.
For Carley, however, sleep did not soon come.She had too many aches; the aftermath of her shock of fright abided with her; and the blackness of night, the cold whip of wind over her face, and the unprotected helplessness she felt in this novel bed, were too entirely new and disturbing to be overcome at once.So she lay wide eyed, staring at the dense gray shadow, at the flickering lights upon the cedar.At length her mind formed a conclusion that this sort of thing might be worth the hardship once in a lifetime, anyway.What a concession to Glenn's West! In the secret seclusion of her mind she had to confess that if her vanity had not been so assaulted and humiliated she might have enjoyed herself more.
It seemed impossible, however, to have thrills and pleasures and exaltations in the face of discomfort, privation, and an uneasy half-acknowledged fear.No woman could have either a good or a profitable time when she was at her worst.Carley thought she would not be averse to getting Flo Hutter to New York, into an atmosphere wholly strange and difficult, and see how she met situation after situation unfamiliar to her.
And so Carley's mind drifted on until at last she succumbed to drowsiness.
A voice pierced her dreams of home, of warmth and comfort.Something sharp, cold, and fragrant was scratching her eyes.She opened them.Glenn stood over her, pushing a sprig of cedar into her face.
"Carley, the day is far spent," he said, gayly."We want to roll up your bedding.Will you get out of it?""Hello, Glenn! What time is it?" she replied.
"It's nearly six."
"What!...Do you expect me to get up at that ungodly hour?""We're all up.Flo's eating breakfast.It's going to be a bad day, I'm afraid.And we want to get packed and moving before it starts to rain.""Why do girls leave home?" she asked, tragically.
"To make poor devils happy, of course," he replied, smiling down upon her.
That smile made up to Carley for all the clamoring sensations of stiff, sore muscles.It made her ashamed that she could not fling herself into this adventure with all her heart.Carley essayed to sit up."Oh, I'm afraid my anatomy has become disconnected!...Glenn, do I look a sight?" She never would have asked him that if she had not known she could bear inspection at such an inopportune moment.