Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/150

140 tion, who hailed them usually with some witicism. But if Ruth chanced to be singing, they broke off their own refrains and applauded the girl's effort.

Once a coyote began yapping on the hillside near at hand, as Ruth and Jane Ann rode. The latter jerked out the shiny gun that swung at her belt and fired twice in the direction of the brute's challenge.

"That'll scare him," she explained. "They're a nuisance at calving time."

Slowly, but steadily, the cloud crept up the sky and snuffed out the light of the stars. The lightning, however, only played at intervals, with the thunder muttering hundreds of miles away, in the hills.

"It is going to rain, Nita," declared Ruth, with conviction.

"Well, let's put the rubber blankets over us, and be ready for it," said the ranch girl, cheerfully. "We don't want to go in now and have the boys laugh at us."

"Of course not," agreed Ruth.

Jane Ann showed her how to slip the slicker over her head. Its folds fell all about her and, as she rode astride, she would be well sheltered from the rain if it began to fall. They were now some miles from the camp on the river bank, but had not as yet rounded the extreme end of the