Presently this very self-contained visitor trotted away into the brushwood, rustling his spines as he went. David laughed and said it was a pity not to have shot the little pig.
"We could have baked him in the ashes, Nell," he added regretfully.
"We mustn’t fire shots unless we are forced," she answered, "that would never do. Do you remember the story Dad told us about that fox that tried all ways to get a hedgehog in snow time and couldn’t? So he burrowed a tunnel in the snow and came up under the hedgehog and bit it underneath. Horribly clever, foxes are. I rather love them, don’t you, Da? They are so clever."
Everything seemed to promise a peaceful night. The two got into their fur bags in peace and quiet. The night was still, there was no sound but the slipping of snow from branches, as the weight shifted a little in the thaw.
And then Nell found she could not sleep. She had that kind of busy mind that seems straining after sounds. The fact was she was anxious, though she would not allow it. Her mind was craving to get on, and on. She would have liked to travel all night as well as all day, but had to keep up a sort of pretence of ease and security for fear of worrying David too much. He would have taken it to heart, and the strain would have been too great, joined to the hard day’s pulling.
Hour after hour the girl lay still, only moving to keep the fire up. She would have given anything to feel sleepy and to stop thinking. She could not forget those precious leather bags that she felt against her side; the presence of them forced her to keep on thinking about the long miles ahead before she could put them in safety.
Presently something else began to disturb her. That queer feeling of certainty that someone is near. She heard no special sound, yet the sense of a presence grew and grew till the commonest noises made her jump. When the faint grey of dawn began to creep around the little camp, she crawled out of her bag and stood up. Robin sprang up too and shook himself, then he stretched a very long stretch and yawned, looking at his mistress in an interested way.
Nell took him by the ears and whispered to him that he must stop and look after David. She was going a very short way, but he must guard the camp. Robin sank down against the boy’s side with a sigh. He wanted to go, but he knew his duty. The girl looked to the priming of her pistol, then she stole away alone, into the forest.