me ones bang their hind feet down on the
floor that way."

In vain Saxon tried to win sleep. The sand grew harder with the passage
of time. Her flesh and her bones ached from contact with it. And, though
her reason flouted any possibility of wild dangers, her fancy went on
picturing them with unflagging zeal.

A new sound commenced. It was neither a rustling nor a rattling, and
it tokened some large body passing through the brush. Sometimes twigs
crackled and broke, and, once, they heard bush-branches press aside and
spring back into place.

"If that other thing was a panther, this is an elephant," was Billy's
uncheering opinion. "It's got weight. Listen to that. An' it's comin'
nearer."

There were frequent stoppages, then the sounds would begin again, always
louder, always closer. Billy sat up in the blankets once more, passing
one arm around Saxon, who had also sat up.

"I ain't slept a wink," he complained. "--There it goes again. I wish I
could see."

"It makes a noise big enough for a grizzly," Saxon chattered, partly
from nervousness, partly from the chill of the night.

"It ain't no grasshopper, that's sure."

Billy started to leave the blankets, but Saxon caught his arm.

"What are you going to do?"

"Oh, I ain't scairt none," he answered. "But, honest to God, this is
gettin' on my nerves. If I don't find what that thing is, it'll give me
the willies. I'm just goin' to reconnoiter. I won't go close."

So intensely dark was the night, that the moment Billy crawled beyond
the reach of her hand he was lost to sight. She sat and waited. The
sound had ceased, though she could follow Billy's progress by the
cracking of dry twigs and limbs. After a few moments he returned and
crawled under the blankets.

"I scared it away, I guess. It's got better ears, an' when it heard me
comin' it skinned out most likely. I did my dangdest, too, not to make a
sound.--O Lord, there it goes again."

They sat up. Saxon nudged Billy.

"There," she warned, in the faintest of whispers. "I can hear it
breathing. It almost made a snort."

A dead branch cracked loudly, and so near at hand, that both of them
jumped shamelessly.

"I ain't goin' to stand any more of its foolin'," Billy declared
wrathfully. "It'll be on top of us if I don't."

"What are you going to do?" she queried anxiously.

"Yell the top of my head off. I'll get a fall outa whatever it is."

He drew a deep breath and emitted a wild yell.

The resu