"What ails you fellows; don't any of you expect to crawl into your blankets and pick up a little sleep? Talking may be all very well, but it doesn't rest you up any. Ned, why don't you tell Jimmy to sound taps, all lights out so the rest of us can adjourn? As long as Jimmy's afloat to do the grand talking act, it isn't any use trying to go to sleep, because you just can't." Jimmy seemed ready to take up that challenge, and entered upon an argument calculated to prove that he was a mild mannered individual alongside of some people he could mention, though not wanting to give names. Ned, however, put his foot down. "Harry's right this time, Jimmy, and you know it. So make up your mind to simmer down, and keep the rest for another time. We'll find a soft spot and see how well this ground lies. And we ought to make up some for lost sleep to-night, with that soft breeze blowing, and the air getting fresher right along." At that plain invitation Jimmy began to make his blanket ready, for he never liked seeing any one crawl in ahead of him any more than he did to be the first one up in the morning. Amos still sat there. Ned, looking at the boy, saw that there was a little frown on his forehead, as though he did not exactly like something or other. "What's wrong, Amos?" he asked, quietly. "The breeze, it is no stronger than before, you can see, Ned," the kid puncher replied, as he held up his wet forefinger, after the fashion of range riders and plainsmen in general. "That's true enough," replied the scout master, always willing to pick up points in woodcraft, for he did not pretend to know everything there was going. "But listen!" added Amos; "it is much louder now, you see." Ned became intensely interested at once. "You are right," he remarked, "the sound of that wolfish howling does come three times as loud as in the start, and yet the wind couldn't be the reason of that. Do you know what makes it, Amos?" "I could give a guess, mebbe." "As how?" continued Ned, while Jack and Jimmy and Harry all stopped their preparations for fixing their blankets to suit their individual wants, in order to hear what the kid puncher would say. "When I was over there at the wolf ranch," Amos commenced, "I remember now that I noticed the pen looked old and weak. I asked the hunter about it, and he said it'd hold, he guessed; that wolves, they didn't have the intelligence of hosses, or even cattle, so as to make a combined rush at a weak place." "Well?" Ned remarked, as Amos paused. "It might be that somethin' happened to make that weak place in the big pen give way, and the whole pack is loose, acomin' for the river, hungry as all get-out, and ready to attack anything that walks on two legs, because they are nearly starved!"