r her own children.

"Wolves not wanted," she suddenly remarked.

Dusty Star, looking at her, saw that the humour had gone out of her
eyes. She looked almost fierce. Kiopo had not been mentioned. But he saw
that Goshmeelee knew.

"I shall tell my wolf," he said quietly. "He will not harm them!"

A look shot out of Goshmeelee's eyes which there was no mistaking. It
said, as plainly as words, that if any wolf was so ill-advised as to
attempt to harm any babies he might happen to find in that swamp, she
had a claw or two, in a paw or two, which that wolf would devoutly wish
had been pulled out when she was born!

After that, the conversation, which had never been very fluent, dragged
a little, and though Goshmeelee didn't cease to be friendly, Dusty Star
felt that perhaps it was time that the interview came to an end. So,
letting her understand how glad he was to have made her acquaintance,
and again assuring her that neither he nor his wolf were persons to be
uneasy about, he moved quietly away.

Goshmeelee watched him carefully till he was out of sight, and then
remarked to herself, that the forest was becoming dreadfully
overcrowded, and that she hoped the new Carboona neighbours would know
how to behave.

If she had happened to be at the other end of the swamp, and had seen
another human figure working its way stealthily through the underbrush,
as if it wished to avoid observation, her feeling about over-crowding
would have been even stronger than it was. But fortunately for her peace
of mind, she did not see it, and so went back to the lair between the
hemlock roots totally unconscious of the fact that a far more
objectionable intruder than Dusty Star had crossed the borders of the
forbidden land which swampily surrounded the treasures of her heart.

As he returned home, Dusty Star also was equally unaware of the intruder
picking a cautious way through the shadowy stillness on moccasins that
seemed to avoid by instinct every fallen twig. He, too, by force of
habit, moved silently through the woods. But by this time he had ceased
to feel that he was in a strange land, and followed the trail with the
certainty of one who knows he is going home.

Very different, indeed, the passage of that other figure, which seemed
to be seeking for something which kept itself in hiding behind the
forest screen.

And although in his own evil heart, Double Runner knew full well the
object of his search, to the eyes of the wil