Presently I fell into a doze.
How long I slept I could not tell, for it seemed to me that a dreamy consciousness of a dog barking at last forced itself upon me so strongly that I awoke.

The barking appeared to come from behind the cabin in the direction of the clearing where I had tethered Chu Chu.

I opened the door hurriedly, ran round the cabin towards the hollow, and was almost at once met by the bulk of the frightened Chu Chu, plunging out of the darkness towards me, kept only in check by her reata in the hand of a blanketed shape slowly advancing with a gun over its shoulder out of the hollow.

Before I had time to recover from my astonishment I was thrown into greater confusion by recognizing the shape as none other than Caroline! Without the least embarrassment or even self-consciousness of her appearance, she tossed the end of the reata to me with the curtest explanation as she passed by.

Some prowling bear or catamount had frightened the mule.