ere
she stayed, alternately turning back and front to the welcome heat. She
seemingly roasted hands, face, and knees while her back froze. The wind
blew the smoke in all directions. When she groped around with blurred,
smarting eyes to escape the hot smoke, it followed her. The other
members of the party sat comfortably on sacks or rocks, without much
notice of the smoke that so exasperated Carley. Twice Glenn insisted
that she take a seat he had fixed for her, but she preferred to stand
and move around a little.

By and by the camp tasks of the men appeared to be ended, and all
gathered near the fire to lounge and smoke and talk. Glenn and Hutter
engaged in interested conversation with two Mexicans, evidently sheep
herders. If the wind and cold had not made Carley so uncomfortable she
might have found the scene picturesque. How black the night! She could
scarcely distinguish the sky at all. The cedar branches swished in
the wind, and from the gloom came a low sound of waves lapping a rocky
shore. Presently Glenn held up a hand.

"Listen, Carley!" he said.

Then she heard strange wild yelps, staccato, piercing, somehow
infinitely lonely. They made her shudder.

"Coyotes," said Glenn. "You'll come to love that chorus. Hear the dogs
bark back."

Carley listened with interest, but she was inclined to doubt that she
would ever become enamoured of such wild cries.

"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 enduranc