Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School Part 27

"Let's feed the poor soul," interposed Grace. "It would be wanton cruelty to keep him waiting any longer."

"He'll have to make the fire, then," said Reddy. "Make him pay for his dumplings if he wants 'em so early."

"All right, Carrots," cried Hippy. "I'll gather f.a.gots and make a fire, just to keep you from talking so much."

"I'll help you, Hippy," said Nora. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I am very hungry too. It's the people who are never able to eat at the table, and then go off and feed up in the pantry, who always manage to s.h.i.+rk their work."

The others all laughed.

"Let's make a fair division of labor," put in Grace, "so as to prevent future talk."

While some of them gathered sticks and dried branches, the others began clearing away the snow in an open s.p.a.ce, where the fire could be built.

Anne and Jessica unpacked the luncheon and poured some coffee from a gla.s.s jar into a tin pot to be heated, while Tom peeled several long switches and impaled pieces of bacon on the ends to be cooked over the fire, which was soon blazing comfortably.

"How do you like this, girls?" he asked presently, when the broiling bacon began to give out an appetizing smell and the hot coffee added its fragrance to the air. "How's this for a winter picnic?"

"I like it better than a summer picnic," interposed Hippy. "The food is better and there are no gnats."

"Gnats are very fond of fat people," said Reddy. "They drink down their blood like--circus lemonade."

"Get busy and give me some coffee, Red-head," said Hippy, who sat on a stump and ate energetically, while the others were broiling their slices of bacon.

"Here, Hippy," said Nora, pouring out a steaming cupful, "if it wasn't interesting to watch you store it away, perhaps I wouldn't wait on you hand and foot like this."

"This is the best way in the world to cook bacon," said Tom, holding his wand over the fire with several pieces of bacon stuck on the forked ends.

"A very good method, if your stick doesn't burn up," replied Anne.

"There! Mine fell into the fire. I knew it would."

Meantime, Jessica and Grace were frying the rest of the slices in a pan.

"That's good enough, but this is better and quicker," said Grace.

"There's no reason for dispensing with all the comforts of a home just because you choose to be a woodsman, Tom."

They never forget how they enjoyed that luncheon, devouring everything to the ultimate crumb and the final drop of hot coffee.

Although it was bitterly cold, they did not feel the chill. The brisk walk, the warm fire and their hearty meal had quickened their blood, and even Anne, the smallest and most delicate of them all, felt something of Tom's enthusiasm for the deep woods.

At last it was time to start again.

The boys were trampling down the fire while the girls began stowing the cups and coffee-pot into a basket. The woods seemed suddenly to have grown very quiet.

"How still it is," whispered Anne. "I feel as if everything in the world had stopped. There is not a breath stirring."

"Perhaps it has," answered Grace. "But we mustn't stop, even if everything else has, now that the fire is out, or we'll freeze to death."

She was just about to call the others briskly, for the air was beginning to nip her cheeks, when something in the faces of the four boys made her pause.

They were standing together near the remains of the fire, and seemed to be listening intently.

Not a sound, not even the crackling of a branch disturbed the stillness for a moment and then, from what appeared to be a great distance, came a long, howling wail, so forlorn, so weird, it might have been the cry of a spirit.

"What is it?" whispered the other girls, creeping about Grace.

"I think we'd better be hurrying along, now, girls," said David in a natural voice. "It's getting late."

"You can't deceive us, David," replied Grace calmly. "We know it's wolves."

CHAPTER XIX

WOLVES!

Wolves! The name was terrifying enough. But their cry, that long-drawn-out, hungry call, gave the picnickers a chill of apprehension.

"We must take the nearest way out of the wood, Reddy," exclaimed Tom.

"They are still several miles off, and, if we hurry, we may reach the open before they do."

All started on a run, David helping Anne to keep up with the others while Reddy looked after Jessica. Nora and Grace were well enough trained in outdoor exercise to run without any a.s.sistance from the boys.

Indeed, Grace Harlowe could out-run most boys of her own age.

"Go straight to your left," called Reddy, consulting his compa.s.s as he hurried Jessica over the snow.

Again they heard the angry howl of the wolves, and the last time it seemed much nearer.

"It's a terrible business, this running after a heavy meal," muttered Hippy, gasping for breath as he stumbled along in the track of his friends. "I'll make a nice meal for 'em if they catch me," he added, "and it looks as if I'd be the first to go."

"Reddy, are you sure you're right?" called Tom. "The woods don't seem to be thinning out as they are likely to do toward the edge."

"Keep going," called Reddy, confident of the direction. "You see, we had gone pretty far in, but I believe the open country is about a mile this way."

A mile? Good heavens! Jessica and Anne were already stumbling from exhaustion, while Hippy was quite winded. Another five minutes of this and at least three of the party would be food for wolves, unless something could be done. So thought David, who, breathless and light headed, was now almost carrying Anne.

"Hurrah!" cried Grace, who had been running ahead of the others. "Here's Jean's hut!"

There, sure enough, right in front of them, was a little house built of logs and mud.

Had it been put in that particular spot years ago just to save their eight lives now? Anne wondered vaguely as she blindly stumbled on.

As Grace lifted the wooden latch of the door, she looked over her shoulder. Not three hundred yards away loped five gaunt, gray animals.

Their tongues hung limply from the sides of their mouths and their eyes glowered with a fierce hunger.

"Hurry!" she cried, in an agony of fear. "Oh, hurry!"

Tom and David were carrying Anne now, while Jessica was half staggering, a.s.sisted by Nora and Reddy. Hippy, the perspiration pouring from his face, brought up the rear, and they had scarcely pulled him in and barred the door before the wolves had reached the hut and were leaping against the walls howling and snarling.