ng way, it seemed to Nan; then they came
to a hill so steep that they were glad to drop to a walk. Their bodies
steamed in a great cloud as they tugged the sleigh up the slope. Dark
woods shut the road in on either hand. Nan's eyes had got used to the
faint light so that she could see this at least.

Suddenly she heard a mournful, long-drawn howl, seemingly at a great
distance.

"Must be a farm somewhere near," she said to Rafe, who sat beside her on
the back seat.

"Nope. No farms around here, Nan," he returned.

"But I hear a dog howl," she told him.

Rafe listened, too. Then he turned to her with a grin on his sharp face
that she did not see. "Oh, no, you don't," he chuckled. "That's no dog."

Again the howl was repeated, and it sounded much nearer. Nan realized,
too, that it was a more savage sound than she had ever heard emitted by
a dog.

"What is it?" she asked, speaking in a low voice to Rafe.

"Wolves!" responded her cousin maliciously. "But you mustn't mind a
little thing like that. You don't have wolves down round where you live,
I s'pose?"

Nan knew that he was attempting to plague her, so she said: "Not for
pets, at least, Rafe. These sound awfully savage."

"They are," returned her cousin calmly.

The wolf cry came nearer and nearer. The ponies had started on a trot
again at the top of the hill, and her uncle and Tom did not seem to
notice the ugly cry. Nan looked back, and was sure that some great
animal scrambled out of the woods and gave chase to them.

"Isn't there some danger?" she asked Rafe again.

"Not for us," he said. "Of course, if the whole pack gathers and catches
us, then we have to do something."

"What do you do?" demanded Nan quickly.

"Why, the last time we were chased by wolves, we happened to have a ham
and a side of bacon along. So we chucked out first the one, and then the
other, and so pacified the brutes till we got near town."

"Oh!" cried Nan, half believing, half in doubt.

She looked back again. There, into the flickering light of the lantern,
a gaunt, huge creature leaped. Nan could see his head and shoulders
now and then as he plunged on after the sleigh, and a wickeder looking
beast, she hoped never to see.

"Oh!" she gasped again, and grabbed at Rafe's arm.

"Don't you be afraid," drawled that young rascal. "I reckon he hasn't
many of his jolly companions with him. If he had, of course, we'd have
to throw you out to pacify him. That's the rule--younge