lt far exceeded any expectation he could have entertained, and
Saxon's heart leaped up in sheer panic. On the instant the darkness
erupted into terrible sound and movement. There were trashings
of underbrush and lunges and plunges of heavy bodies in different
directions. Fortunately for their ease of mind, all these sounds receded
and died away.

"An' what d'ye think of that?" Billy broke the silence.

"Gee! all the fight fans used to say I was scairt of nothin'. Just the
same I'm glad they ain't seein' me to-night."

He groaned. "I've got all I want of that blamed sand. I'm goin' to get
up and start the fire."

This was easy. Under the ashes were live embers which quickly ignited
the wood he threw on. A few stars were peeping out in the misty zenith.
He looked up at them, deliberated, and started to move away.

"Where are you going now?" Saxon called.

"Oh, I've got an idea," he replied noncommittally, and walked boldly
away beyond the circle of the firelight.

Saxon sat with the blankets drawn closely under her chin, and admired
his courage. He had not even taken the hatchet, and he was going in the
direction in which the disturbance had died away.

Ten minutes later he came back chuckling.

"The sons-of-guns, they got my goat all right. I'll be scairt of my
own shadow next.--What was they? Huh! You couldn't guess in a thousand
years. A bunch of half-grown calves, an' they was worse scairt than us."

He smoked a cigarette by the fire, then rejoined Saxon under the
blankets.

"A hell of a farmer I'll make," he chafed, "when a lot of little calves
can scare the stuffin' outa me. I bet your father or mine wouldn't
a-batted an eye. The stock has gone to seed, that's what it has."

"No, it hasn't," Saxon defended. "The stock is all right. We're just
as able as our folks ever were, and we're healthier on top of it. We've
been brought up different, that's all. We've lived in cities all our
lives. We know the city sounds and thugs, but we don't know the country
ones. Our training has been unnatural, that's the whole thing in a
nutshell. Now we're going in for natural training. Give us a little
time, and we'll sleep as sound out of doors as ever your father or mine
did."

"But not on sand," Billy groaned.

"We won't try. That's one thing, for good and all, we've learned the
very first time. And now hush up and go to sleep."

Their fears had vanished, but the sand, receiving now their undivided
attention, mul