"Now, there's no use your doing that, boy," Ruth declared, clutching
the mastiff tight by the collar with her left hand, while she
balanced the rifle in her right. "If you hear them, bark! Tom will
know it's you, then, and your bark will carry farther than my voice,
I do believe."

Reno whined, and looked from side to side, sniffing the keen, still
air. It seemed as though he scented danger, but did not know for sure
from which direction it was coming.

"You're scaring me, acting so, Reno!" exclaimed Ruth. "I wish you
wouldn't. I can't help feeling that the panther is right behind me
somewhere. Oh!"

The end of her soliloquy was a shriek. Something flashed through the
brush clump on her left hand. Reno broke into a savage barking and
sprang toward the bank. But Ruth did not lose her grip on his collar,
and her hand restrained him.

"Oh, Tom! Tom!" the girl cried.

There was another movement in the bushes. It was between Ruth and
the way to the camp, had she been so foolish as to try to reach the
house directly through the woods. But she did face up stream again,
and had Reno been willing to accompany her she would have run as hard
as ever she could in that direction.

"Come, Reno! Come, good dog!" she gasped, tugging at his collar.
"Let it alone--we must go back----"