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.
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