's the right answer. I
expect my wife and Miss Chuckie, between them, can help me carry the
line as far as the camp."

"I can do it alone," interposed the girl. "Let them both stay here and
rest all afternoon."

"No, Miss Chuckie. I can and shall do my work," insisted Ashton,
springing up with unexpected briskness for one who had appeared so
fatigued. "It is you and Mrs. Blake who must stay here to rest--unless
you wish to keep us company."

"Might we not go to the new camp and put it in order?" suggested
Genevieve.

"What if that outlaw should come sneaking back?" objected Ashton. "It
seems to me you should keep with us."

"He would not trouble us," replied Isobel.

"Yet if he should? Anyway, Blake and I saw a wolf up here the other
day."

"A real wolf! Where?"

"Yes," answered Blake. "Over in the ravine the other side of the head
of Dry Fork Gulch."

"He may attack you," argued Ashton.

The girl laughed. "You're still a tenderfoot to think a wolf wouldn't
know better than that. Wish he didn't! It would mean the saving of a
half dozen calves this winter." She flashed out her long-barreled
automatic pistol and knocked a cone from the tree above Blake's head
with a swiftly aimed shot.

Blake caught the cone as it fell and looked at the bullet hole through
its center. "Unless that was an accident, I should call it some
shooting," he remarked.

"Accident!" she called back. "Stand sideways and see what happens to
your cigar."

"No, thanks. I'll take your word for it. Just lit this one, and I've
only a few left. By by, Tommy! Don't let the wolves eat mamma and the
poor little cowlady!"

He picked up the level and started off at a swinging stride. Ashton
followed several paces behind. His face was sullen and heavy, but in
their merriment over Blake's banter, the ladies failed to observe his
expression.

They rested for a while longer. Then, after venturing down for another
awed look into the abyss, they rode along, parallel with the
stupendous rift, to the place selected for the new camp. As Gowan had
brought up the tent in one of the first packs, the ladies pitched it
on the level top of the ridge.

"This is real camping!" delightedly exclaimed Genevieve, as they set
to gathering leafy twigs for bedding and dry branches for fuel. "How I
wish we could stay all night!"

"We can, if you wish," replied Isobel.

"Can we, really?"

"Our men often sleep out in the open, this time of year. We shall take