here alone?"

"Oh, there ain't nothin' goin' to bother _them_, an' Lidy 'most ten
year old!" insisted Dave, who was in a hurry. "Don't fret, mother.
I'll be back long afore mornin'!"

As the children had no objection to being left, Mrs. Stone suffered
herself to be persuaded. In fact, she went to her new duty with a
certain zest, as a break in the monotony of her days. She had lent a
hand often enough at the sugar-making to be familiar with the task
awaiting her, and it was with an unwonted gaiety that she set out on
what appeared to her almost in the light of a little adventure.

But it was later than she had intended when she actually got away, the
baby crowing joyously on her arm, and the children calling gay
good-byes to her from the open door. Jake, the big brown retriever,
tried to follow her; and when she ordered him back to stay with the
children, he obeyed with a whimpering reluctance that came near
rebellion. As she descended the valley, her feet sinking in the snow
of the thawing trail, she wondered why the dog, which had always
preferred the children, should have grown so anxious to be with her.

When she reached the camp, she was already tired, but the pleasant
excitement was still upon her. When she had skimmed the big,
slow-bubbling pot of syrup, tested a ladleful of it in the snow,
poured in some fresh sap, and replenished the sluggish fire, dusk was
already stealing upon the forest. In her haste she did not notice that
the candle in the old lantern was almost burned out. Snatching up the
lantern, which it was not yet necessary to light, and the big tin
sap-bucket, and giving the baby, who had begun to fret, a lump of hard
sugar to keep him quiet on her arm, she hurried off to tend the
farthest trees before the darkness should close down upon the
silences.

* * * * *

When the last birch cup had been emptied into the bucket, the candle
flickered out; and for a moment or two the sudden blackness seemed to
flap in her face, daunting her. She stood perfectly still till her
eyes readjusted themselves. She was dead tired, the baby and the
brimming bucket were heavy, and the adventurous flavour had quite gone
out of her task.

In part because of her fatigue, she grew suddenly timorous. Her ears
began to listen with terrible intentness till they imagined stealthy
footsteps in the silken shrinkings of the damp snow. At last her eyes
mastered the gloom till she c