"Six o'clock; no earlier, no later. To-morrow mornin' we start at four o'clock. I've got all yer fodder, which-all I'll carry on June and July. Them's my pack mules. Work singly or in pairs. Kin kick like all possessed. No great scratch whether there's anythin' to kick at or not, but they know better'n to kick me, though they ain't no love for Henry, and he gives them heels plenty of room, 'cept one time when he forgot hisself and got kicked clear out into the road, and nigh into kingdom come, and I'll bet the pair of 'em that ye folks ain't got a hoss in the outfit, not even that bronco with the glassy eye, that kin kick once to June or July's twenty kicks, and, if you don't believe it, just heave a tin can at one or t'other of 'em and see if ye can count the kicks, but keep the road between ye and the kicks or I shan't be responsible for what happens to ye, because I know them mules and I know what they can do, and then agin--" "Oh, help!" wailed Emma. "The voice of nature," chuckled Hippy. "And to think we've got to listen to it for weeks to come." "What's that ye say?" demanded Joe. "I--I think I was thinking out loud. I didn't mean to say anything. Honest to goodness I didn't," apologized Hippy lamely. Joe fixed him with threatening eyes, then launched into another monologue on mules, which wound up with some remarks on lumberjacks, and a leaf from her family history. The Overland Riders learned that Joe's husband, who was a timber cruiser, had been killed by lumberjacks, and that she was the sworn enemy of every man who wore a Mackinaw coat and worked in the woods. "Since my man's death I've been livin' up here in the woods, guidin' huntin' parties, makin' an honest livin' and layin' for the men who killed my man. I'll find 'em yet. Now who be ye all? I hain't had no interduction except as Mister Gray interduced himself to me, and--" "This is my wife, Grace Harlowe Gray," said Tom. The forest woman shook hands and glared into Grace's smiling eyes. "Glad to meet ye, Miss Gray. Ye look like one of them boudwarriors that I seen pictures of in the high saciety papers." "Miss Emma Dean," announced Tom, pointing to Emma. "Glad to meet ye." Joe gave Emma a searching look. "Pert as a bird, ain't ye?" "Some of my ancestors, I have reason to believe, were birds, and it is quite possible that I have inherited some of their traits," answered Emma airily. "Sparrows! No good. Don't git swelled up over some of yer folks wearin' feathers. The kind ye belong to they shoot on sight. And now who be _ye_?" demanded the woman, stepping up to the dignified J. Elfreda Briggs. Elfreda introduced herself. "Glad to meet ye. Yer quite set up, but I guess ye might come down a peg after ye git acquainted."