All the girls decided to take advantage of this opportunity, and even Doris found a great deal of pleasure in swimming about in the cool delightful water. It was early in the afternoon that they went in, and the sun was still hot, so that they found the exercise refreshing. Fortunately, the temperature was not so low as that of the stream on the ranch. “I wonder if bears can swim!” remarked Doris, who could not get away from her fears. “If they can’t, we could jump into the water if one of them attacked us.” “I don’t know--I think they can,” said Marjorie. “But I do wish you would stop worrying about it so much.” “Yes,” said Alice, a little sharply, for she never could sympathize with a person of Doris’s nature; “if you had some real worry like Daisy has, perhaps you’d have some reason to complain. But look how self-controlled she is!” The words which sounded harsh were really just what Doris needed, for she had been thinking entirely too much about herself. Alice was right: Daisy Gravers was certainly a girl to be admired. She bore her trouble bravely; she had never even mentioned it to anyone but Marjorie since that first day at the ranch. “You are right, Alice,” Doris admitted, accepting the rebuke meekly. “I guess I am a baby.” “Oh, I have no need to preach,” replied Alice, repenting of her harshness. “But we all have to acknowledge that Daisy is a wonder. Even Kirk Smith treats her differently from the other girls.” The swim and the clean clothing had a refreshing effect upon all the girls; they returned to the camp in brighter spirits. Marjorie felt positively exhilarated. Supper that night was perhaps the gayest meal of the trip; everyone seemed to have some joke to tell, or some story to add to the enjoyment of the occasion. It was not until long afterward when the whole party was sitting around the camp fire that Arthur Hilton introduced the first unlucky stroke. He could not resist the opportunity to tell a harrowing story of an attack by a bear. The men listened with the keenest relish to this exciting adventure, but the girls began to edge up closer and closer to each other, breathing a sigh of relief when Arthur finished. Mrs. Hilton, as usual, made the first move to go to bed. The girls were only too glad to follow her example. Still impressed by Alice’s rebuke of the afternoon, Doris had resolutely succeeded in keeping her fears to herself. Now she crept hastily into bed, pulling her blanket up tight about her, as if to shut out the darkness and the sounds of the night. She was almost dropping to sleep, when her senses were suddenly aroused by a queer howl--the weirdest noise she had ever heard, she thought. She listened, terrified, too much afraid even to sit up in bed. “Marjorie!” she called to her nearest tent-mate, “do you hear that howl?” Marjorie sat up in bed. She had heard it, but had not thought much about it. “Yes, I do,” she replied. “But I don’t know what it is. Listen again!”