“Had we better go back then?” asked Lucy-Ann in disappointment.
“Or camp here for a few days,” said Jack, looking round. “It’s quite a good place.”
They were halfway up a steep mountain that rose very sharply from where they were, and looked quite unclimbable.
“What a queer mountain!” said Dinah, gazing up. “I shouldn’t think anyone ever climbed to the top. It’s all crags and rocks and jutting-out bits.”
“We’ll camp here,” decided Philip. “The weather looks quite settled. There’s a spring nearby. We can mess about with our cameras and field-glasses.”
They told David. He did not seem pleased, but went off to tether the donkeys for the night. They were all tired that evening, children and donkeys both, for they had had a very long day. They cut the big ham that Mrs. Evans had provided for them, afraid that it might go bad if they didn’t eat it soon.
David looked as if he thought he would sleep in the tent again that night, for he cast various longing glances in that direction. However, the night was hot, and he felt he couldn’t bear to be under cover. So he arranged himself under his rug in the open, fairly near to the two tents. The donkeys were some way away, tethered to trees by long ropes.
That night there was a snuffling around the camp. Lucy-Ann awoke suddenly and heard it. She went right down to the bottom of her sleeping-bag, frightened. What could it be? Was it the wild animal that David had heard?
Then she heard a howl! The boys heard it too and awoke. David, outside, was awake, having heard both the noises. He was shivering with fright, all kinds of fears coming into his peasant mind.
The moon was up and everything was silvery bright. David sat up and looked down the hill. What he saw made his hair rise straight up on his head.
Wolves! A pack of wolves! No, no, it couldn’t be. He was dreaming! Wolves had not been known in the mountains for hundreds of years. But if those creatures were not wolves, what were they? And that noise of snuffling he had heard. That must have been a wolf too! No, not a wolf. It couldn’t have been such a thing.
David sat there, hugging his knees, his mind going round and round — wolves or not? Wolves or not? What were they doing near the donkeys?
Another howl came — half a howl, half a bark, a horrible noise. David shot into the boys’ tent and gave them a terrible start.
He stammered something in Welsh, and then in English, “Wolves!”
“Don’t be silly,” said Jack at once, seeing that the man was scared to death. “You’ve had a bad dream.”
David dragged him to the tent opening and pointed with a trembling finger to where the pack of snuffling animals stood, not far from the donkeys.
The boys stared as if they could not believe their eyes. They certainly looked like wolves! Jack felt a cold shiver down his back. Good gracious! Was he dreaming? Those creatures were more like wolves than anything else!
Snowy the kid was trembling as much as David was. His trembling somehow made the boys feel scared too. The only person who was not in the least scared was Kiki.
In the bright moonlight, she too had caught sight of the wolves. She sailed out of the tent at top speed to go and investigate. Anything unusual always interested Kiki. She flew above the animals, whose eyes gleamed green as they turned at her coming.
“Wipe your feet!” screamed Kiki, and made a noise like a mowing-machine cutting long grass. It sounded really terrible in the still night air of the mountainside.
The wolves started in fright. Then with one accord they all galloped away down the hillside into the night. Kiki shouted rude remarks after them.
“They’ve gone,” said Jack. “Gosh, were they real? I can’t understand it!”
When it was dawn, David got up to see if the donkeys were all right. Neither he nor the boys had slept again that night. David had been too scared, and the boys had been too puzzled.
Daylight was almost on the mountain. David crept down quietly to the donkeys. They were all there, safe and sound but uneasy. David untethered them to take them to the stream to drink.
The boys were looking out of their tent, down the hillside, to watch. There was no sign of any wolf now. Birds sang a little, and a yellow-hammer cried out for a little bit of bread and no cheese.
Suddenly something happened. David, who was taking the donkeys in a line to the stream, gave a terrified scream, and fell to the ground, covering his face. The boys, holding their breath, thought they saw something moving in the bushes, but they couldn’t see what.
David gave another scream and got to his feet. He mounted a donkey and rode at top speed up to the tent.
“Come!” he cried in Welsh, and then in English. “Black, black, black!”
The boys had no idea at all what he meant. They stared at him in amazement, thinking he must have gone mad. He made a violent gesture to them, pointed to the following donkeys as if to tell the boys to mount and follow him, and then galloped off at breakneck speed.
They heard the hooves of his donkey echoing on the mountainside for some time. The other donkeys looked doubtfully at one another, and then, to the boys’ dismay, trotted after David!
“Hi! Come back, you!” yelled Jack, scrambling out of the tent. “Hi, hi!”
One donkey turned and made as if to come back, but he was pushed on by others behind. In a trice they had all disappeared, and the sound of their hooves grew fainter and fainter as they galloped away after David and his mount.
The two boys sat down suddenly. They felt faint. Jack turned pale. He looked at Philip and bit his lip. Now they were in a terrible fix.
They said nothing for a moment or two, and then the girls’ two scared faces looked out from their tent.
“What’s happened? What’s all the yelling? Was that David galloping away? We didn’t dare to look!”
“Yes — it was David — running away from us — and all the donkeys have gone after him,” said Philip bitterly. “We’re in a pretty fix now!”
Nobody said anything. Lucy-Ann looked really alarmed. No David! No donkeys! What were they going to do?
Jack put his arm round her as she came and sat down beside him. “It’s all right! We’ve been in worse fixes than this! At the worst it only means a few days here, because as soon as he gets back to the farm, Bill will come and look for us.”
“Good thing we unloaded the donkeys and have got plenty of food,” said Philip. “And our tents and sleeping-bags. Blow David! He’s a coward.”
“I wonder what he saw to make him gallop off like that,” said Jack. “All I could make out was ‘Black, black, black!’ ”
“Black what?” asked Dinah.
“Black nothing. Just black,” said Jack. “Let’s go down to the place where he got his fright and see if we can see anything.”
“Oh no!” said the girls at once.
“Well, I’ll go, and Philip can stay here with you,” said Jack, and off he went. The others watched him, holding their breath. He peered all round and then turned and shook his head and shouted.
“Nothing here! Not a thing to see! David must have been seeing things! His bad night upset him.”
He came back. “But what about those animals in the night?” said Philip, after a pause. “Those wolves. We both saw those. They seemed real enough!”
Yes — what about those wolves!
Chapter 11
A STRANGE HAPPENING
IT wasn’t long before Dinah suggested having something to eat, and went to the big panniers that had been unloaded from the donkeys the night before. She pulled out some tins, thinking that it would be a change to have sardines, and tinned peaches, or something like that. Anything to take their minds off David’s flight, and the disappearance of the donkeys!
They sat down rather silently. Lucy-Ann kept very close to the boys. What with wolves and David’s fright she felt very scared herself!
“I hope this won’t turn into one of our adventures,” she kept saying to herself. “They always happen so suddenly.”
Snowy the kid bounded up to Philip and knocked a tin flying from his hand. He nuzzled affectionately against him and then butted him. Philip rubbed the furry little nose and then pushed the kid away.
“I’m glad you didn’t go off with the donkeys too!” he said. “I’ve got used to having you around now, you funny aggravating little thing. Take your nose out of that tin! Lucy-Ann, push him off — he’ll eat everything we’ve got!”