"When they had gone you found this wolfskin, and, thinking that it was the only way in which to escape, you crawled into it, and crept all the way here, playing wolf, to warn us?" "Yes. I crawled to their camp, and heard them talk. I tried to get close to my blother, to cut him loose, but they saw me and drove me away, and shot at me." "Mercy! But I don't see why they didn't see through your disguise. It wouldn't fool any one." "It was the half dark." "Oh, yes. But why didn't you get out of the skin when you came within sight of the house?" "I not have the strength. I climb the hill and see the house. Then I fall down, and not can rise again. All what I can do is to wave my handkerchief. Then I faint." "You are a brave and lovely girl, and I already love you like a sister," said Stella warmly. "You shall stay here, and need not be afraid. We will be ready for the Gray Wolves, and they will not kill either us or you. Your warning comes just in time." CHAPTER XXIII. BAGGING THE GRAY WOLVES. That night Ted Strong went on watch himself in the cupola, while Bud and Clay Whipple marched around the house in opposite directions. Until the threatened attack took place Ted determined that he would watch the house personally, in addition to the regular guard. About midnight Ted heard a slight noise out on the prairie. The night was bright and frosty, and the stars shone with a peculiarly brilliant radiance, seemingly larger, brighter, and nearer the earth than in more northern climes. Instantly his acute senses located the place whence the noise had come. It was merely a slight rustling, but as there was no wind Ted knew instantly that it had been made by some creature. His eyes, fixed on the spot, soon became accustomed to the faint light, and he saw an indistinct form that was so near the color of the earth that a pair of eyes not so sharp as his would have failed to detect it. So indistinct was it that it looked almost like a wraith of grayish-blue smoke by the starlight. Presently, as he still stared closely at it, he saw another form much like it steal through the dead grass toward it. Then, over the hills on the east, rose the moon in its first quarter, shedding a pale light over the prairie. Ted was now able to see that there was a pack of wolves, instead of two, as he at first thought. The boys on the ground could not see the wolves on account of the tufts of grass that scattered over the prairie, and, had they seen them, would not have been able to distinguish one from the other. It seemed strange to Ted that the wolves had not yet given voice. It was unusual for wolves to come so near a ranch house in numbers without giving warning by howling. Suddenly the reason why they did not dawned upon him. They were not wolves, but men in wolves' clothing. Ted chuckled at the thought.