selecting a
guide. Let's go back to the house, make camp nearby, and wait until the
sturdy warrior is ready for us. She will be out again to talk to us soon
enough, if I am a judge of human nature."

The Overlanders acted upon the suggestion and pitched their little tents
among the trees across the trail from Joe Shafto's home. While they were
thus engaged Joe came over and watched the operations, but without
uttering a word until the camp was made and a little cook fire started
for a cup of afternoon tea.

"What's that for?" she demanded, pointing to the fire.

"Afternoon tea now, and to cook our supper on later," answered Grace.

"Yer all goin' to eat supper with me."

The girls protested, but Joe, when once she had made an assertion, would
brook no opposition.

"Six o'clock; no earlier, no later. To-morrow mornin' we start at four
o'clock. I've got all yer fodder, which-all I'll carry on June and July.
Them's my pack mules. Work singly or in pairs. Kin kick like all
possessed. No great scratch whether there's anythin' to kick at or not,
but they know better'n to kick me, though they ain't no love for Henry,
and he gives them heels plenty of room, 'cept one time when he forgot
hisself and got kicked clear out into the road, and nigh into kingdom
come, and I'll bet the pair of 'em that ye folks ain't got a hoss in the
outfit, not even that bronco with the glassy eye, that kin kick once to
June or July's twenty kicks, and, if you don't believe it, just heave a
tin can at one or t'other of 'em and see if ye can count the kicks, but
keep the road between ye and the kicks or I shan't be responsible for
what happens to ye, because I know them mules and I know what they can
do, and then agin--"

"Oh, help!" wailed Emma.

"The voice of nature," chuckled Hippy. "And to think we've got to listen
to it for weeks to come."

"What's that ye say?" demanded Joe.

"I--I think I was thinking out loud. I didn't mean to say anything.
Honest to goodness I didn't," apologized Hippy lamely.

Joe fixed him with threatening eyes, then launched into another
monologue on mules, which wound up with some remarks on lumberjacks,
and a leaf from her family history.

The Overland Riders learned that Joe's husband, who was a timber
cruiser, had been killed by lumberjacks, and that she was the sworn
enemy of every man who wore a Mackinaw coat and worked in the woods.

"Since my man's death I've been livin' up here in the woods, guidin