t's breaking into the camp, and after a
while the girls kindled a fire, thawed out their luncheon and ate it.
The December sun was sinking low, and soon set behind the tree tops. It
was a long way home, and they had their baskets of mitchella to carry.
Hoping that the distressed creature had gone its way, they listened for
a while at the door, and at last ventured forth; but when they drew near
the place where Kate had gathered the dry spruce branches they heard the
creature yapping in the thickets ahead. In a panic they ran back to the
camp.

Their situation was not pleasant. They dared not venture out again.
Darkness had already set in; the camp was cold and they had little fuel.
The prospect that any one from home would come to their aid was small,
for they were now a long way from Dunham's open, where they had said
they were going, and where, of course, search parties would look for
them. Kate, however, remained cheerful.

"It's nothing!" she exclaimed. "I can soon get wood for a fire." Under
the bunk she had found an old axe, and with it she proceeded to chop up
the camp table.

"The only thing I'm afraid of," she said, "is that the boys will start
out to look for us, and that if they find our tracks in the snow,
they'll come on up here and run afoul of that fox before they know it."

"We can shout to them," Ellen suggested.

Not much later, in fact, they began to make the forest resound with
loud, clear calls. For a long while the only answer to their cries came
from two owls; but Kate was right in thinking that we boys would set out
to find them.

Addison, Halstead and I had been up in Lot 32 that day with the old
Squire, making an estimate of timber, and we did not reach home until
after dark. Grandmother met us with the news that the girls had gone to
Dunham's open for partridge-berry vines, and had not returned. She was
very uneasy about them; but we were hungry and, grumbling a little that
the girls could not come home at night as they were expected to, sat
down to supper.

"I am afraid they've lost their way," grandmother said, after a few
minutes. "It's going to be very cold. You must go to look for them!" And
the old Squire agreed with her.

Just as we finished supper Thomas Edwards, Kate's brother, came in with
a lantern, to ask whether Kate was there; and without much further delay
we four boys set off. Addison took his gun and Halstead another lantern.
We were not much worried about the girls;