Dale led around several clumps of timber, up a long grassy swale, and then straight westward across an open flat toward where the dark-fringed forest-line raised itself wild and clear against the cold sky. The horses went swiftly, and the wind cut like a blade of ice. Helen could barely get her breath and she panted as if she had just climbed a laborsome hill. The stars began to blink out of the blue, and the gold paled somewhat, and yet twilight lingered. It seemed long across that flat, but really was short. Coming to a thin line of trees that led down over a slope to a deeper but still isolated patch of woods, Dale dismounted and tied his horse. When the girls got off he haltered their horses also.
"Stick close to me an' put your feet down easy," he whispered. How tall and dark he loomed in the fading light!
Helen thrilled, as she had often of late, at the strange, potential force of the man. Stepping softly, without the least sound, Dale entered this straggly bit of woods, which appeared to have narrow byways and nooks. Then presently he came to the top of a well-wooded slope, dark as pitch, apparently. But as Helen followed she perceived the trees, and they were thin dwarf spruce, partly dead. The slope was soft and springy, easy to step upon without noise. Dale went so cautiously that Helen could not hear him, and sometimes in the gloom she could not see him. Then the chill thrills ran over her. Bo kept holding on to Helen, which fact hampered Helen as well as worked somewhat to disprove Bo's boast. At last level ground was reached. Helen made out a light-gray background crossed by black bars. Another glance showed this to be the dark tree-trunks against the open park.
Dale halted, and with a touch brought Helen to a straining pause. He was listening. It seemed wonderful to watch him bend his head and stand as silent and motionless as one of the dark trees.
"He's not there yet," Dale whispered, and he stepped forward very slowly. Helen and Bo began to come up against thin dead branches that were invisible and then cracked. Then Dale knelt down, seemed to melt into the ground.
"You'll have to crawl," he whispered.
How strange and thrilling that was for Helen, and hard work!
The ground bore twigs and dead branches, which had to be carefully crawled over; and lying flat, as was necessary, it took prodigious effort to drag her body inch by inch. Like a huge snake, Dale wormed his way along.
Gradually the wood lightened. They were nearing the edge of the park. Helen now saw a strip of open with a high, black wall of spruce beyond. The afterglow flashed or changed, like a dimming northern light, and then failed. Dale crawled on farther to halt at length between two tree-trunks at the edge of the wood.
"Come up beside me," he whispered.
Helen crawled on, and presently Bo was beside her panting, with pale face and great, staring eyes, plain to be seen in the wan light.
"Moon's comin' up. We're just in time. The old grizzly's not there yet, but I see coyotes. Look."Dale pointed across the open neck of park to a dim blurred patch standing apart some little distance from the black wall.
"That's the dead horse," whispered Dale. "An' if you watch close you can see the coyotes. They're gray an' they move. .
. . Can't you hear them?"
Helen's excited ears, so full of throbs and imaginings, presently registered low snaps and snarls. Bo gave her arm a squeeze.
"I hear them. They're fighting. Oh, gee!" she panted, and drew a long, full breath of unutterable excitement.
"Keep quiet now an' watch an' listen," said the hunter.
Slowly the black, ragged forest-line seemed to grow blacker and lift; slowly the gray neck of park lightened under some invisible influence; slowly the stars paled and the sky filled over. Somewhere the moon was rising. And slowly that vague blurred patch grew a little clearer.
Through the tips of the spruce, now seen to be rather close at hand, shone a slender, silver crescent moon, darkening, hiding, shining again, climbing until its exquisite sickle-point topped the trees, and then, magically, it cleared them, radiant and cold. While the eastern black wall shaded still blacker, the park blanched and the border-line opposite began to stand out as trees.
"Look! Look!" cried Bo, very low and fearfully, as she pointed.
"Not so loud," whispered Dale.
"But I see something!"
"Keep quiet," he admonished.
Helen, in the direction Bo pointed, could not see anything but moon-blanched bare ground, rising close at hand to a little ridge.
"Lie still," whispered Dale. "I'm goin' to crawl around to get a look from another angle. I'll be right back."He moved noiselessly backward and disappeared. With him gone, Helen felt a palpitating of her heart and a prickling of her skin.
"Oh, my! Nell! Look!" whispered Bo, in fright. "I know I saw something."On top of the little ridge a round object moved slowly, getting farther out into the light. Helen watched with suspended breath. It moved out to be silhouetted against the sky -- apparently a huge, round, bristling animal, frosty in color. One instant it seemed huge -- the next small -- then close at hand -- and far away. It swerved to come directly toward them. Suddenly Helen realized that the beast was not a dozen yards distant. She was just beginning a new experience -- a real and horrifying terror in which her blood curdled, her heart gave a tremendous leap and then stood still, and she wanted to fly, but was rooted to the spot -- when Dale returned to her side.
"That's a pesky porcupine," he whispered. "Almost crawled over you. He sure would have stuck you full of quills."Whereupon he threw a stick at the animal. It bounced straight up to turn round with startling quickness, and it gave forth a rattling sound; then it crawled out of sight.
"Por -- cu -- pine!" whispered Bo, pantingly. "It might --as well -- have been -- an elephant!"
Helen uttered a long, eloquent sigh. She would not have cared to describe her emotions at sight of a harmless hedgehog.