e and pain it
required, the more pride and pleasure one had in remembering it. Carley
was weighing the import of these words when suddenly Flo clutched her
arm. "What's that?" she whispered, tensely.

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!... Ha! Ha! Ha! 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