Page:Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp.djvu/186

176 "Ridiculous! no self-respecting beast would be out in such a gale. They'd know better," declared Madge Steele, briskly.

"And if one does come here," muttered Jennie, sleepily, " I shall kill and eat him."

She nodded off the next moment and Helen followed her example. Madge and Ruth talked to keep each other awake. Occasionally they fought their way to the half-dead tree and brought back armfuls of its smaller branches.

"It's a shame," declared Miss Steele, "that girls don't carry knives, and such useful things. Did you ever know a girl to have anything in her pocket that was worth carrying—if she chanced by good luck to have a pocket at all? Now, with a knife, we could get some better wood."

"I know," Ruth admitted. "I know more about camping out than ever I did before. Next time, I'm going to carry things. You never know what is going to happen."

As the evening advanced the cold became more biting. They stirred up the fire with a long stick and the glowing coals threw out increased warmth. The four sleeping girls stirred uneasily, and Madge, putting her hand against the back wall of rock, found that it had cooled.

"When it comes ten o'clock," she said, consulting the watch she carried, "we'll wake them up,