e morning. Grace has a
duplicate of my forestry map, and will know where I am most of the time.
I'll look in on you from time to time, and about the first of the month
I shall make my headquarters on the Little Big Branch where you folks
are going to camp for a few weeks. Be careful of fire, and if you are
visited by a fire warden tell him who you are. One cannot be too
particular about saving the forests, and a little carelessness might
cause a fire loss of thousands of dollars before the blaze could be
stopped."

"We want to go to bed," interrupted Emma. "How are we going to do so
with one side of the house out?"

"Hang two blankets over the front, please, Hippy. Take them down after
the girls have turned in. I will look after the ponies; then you and I
will hit the pines," directed Tom, rising.

The forest woman was hanging up the mess kits to dry when Tom and Hippy
went out to water and rub down the ponies. She beckoned them to wait.

"I been thinkin' 'bout what ye said of Peg Tatem, Cap'n Gray, and I
don't like it," she said in a tone low enough to prevent being overheard
by the girls, who were preparing for bed. "Peg must have been mad 'bout
somethin' and I reckon it would be healthy for us to git out of here in
the mornin' and camp as far away from Forty-three as we kin. What do ye
say, Cap'n?"

"Don't worry about Peg. We shall be out of this in the morning, anyway.
I have to leave you to-morrow, so take good care of the girls and don't
let Henry eat the bull pup."

"He had better not," growled Hippy.

The two Overland men went to their lean-to laughing, Mrs. Shafto feeding
the night logs to the fire before seeking her own browse-bed, Henry
taking up his resting place a little distance from her in the shadows
and away from the fire. His fur coat was sufficient protection against
the evening chill, but Hindenburg's hair was short, and he was shivering
when he crawled in and nosed his way under Lieutenant Wingate's blanket.

It did not seem to the Overlanders as if they had more than dropped to
sleep, though they had been asleep for hours, when they were startled by
a terrific explosion, an explosion that shook the earth and made the
forest trees above them tremble and a shower of pine cones rain down on
them in a perfect deluge.

"Tree coming! Run!" shouted Tom Gray, at the same time firing his
revolver into the air to urge the Overlanders to greater haste.

CHAPTER X

MYSTERY IN THE FALL OF A