I laughed. “Yeah. A herd of buffalo.”
We struggled with the tent. The gusting wind kept blowing it out of our hands. We finally got
it to stand. But then the wind kept blowing out our campfire.
By the time we finished dinner, it was late. All three of us were yawning. My shoulders ached
from carrying the heavy backpack.
We decided to climb into the tent and go to sleep. Shawn and Chip crawled inside. I started to
follow them—then stopped.
I had the strange feeling again. The prickling on the back of my neck. Who was watching us?
I squinted through the misty darkness. I sucked in my breath when I saw dull gray
circles—several pairs of them—floating low between the trees.
Eyes?
I dove into the tent. We slept in our clothes under wool blankets. The wool felt scratchy. The
tent was damp from dew.
We couldn’t sleep. We started to tell each other jokes. We were kidding around and laughing a
lot.
But we stopped laughing when the howls started.
They were low at first, like ambulance sirens far in the distance. But then they sounded
closer, louder. And we knew they were animal howls.
“I … hope it’s dogs!” Shawn exclaimed. “Maybe it’s just some wild dogs.”
We huddled close together. We all knew we weren’t hearing dogs. We were hearing wolf howls.
So close… so close we could hear the harsh, shallow breaths between the howls.
And then the soft crunch of footsteps outside the tent.
They were here! The howling creatures! The tent flap blew open.
My friends and I let out screams.
Two men in black leather jackets leaned down to peer into our tent. One of them raised a
flashlight. He moved the light slowly from face to face. “Are you kids okay?” he asked.
“Wh-who are you?” I asked.
“Forest Patrol,” the other man said.
“Yeah. Right. Forest Patrol,” his partner repeated.
They both stared at us so hard. Their eyes were cold, not friendly at all.
“The woods really aren’t safe,” the man with the flashlight said. “Not safe at all.”
His partner nodded. “First thing in the morning, you should get yourselves to the road. It’s
right up there.” He pointed.
We promised we would. We thanked them for checking on us.
But I didn’t like the way they stared. They didn’t look like forest rangers. And as soon as
they left, the frightening howls started up again. Howls all around us.
We didn’t sleep at all that night. We lay awake, staring up at the tent walls, listening to
the animal howls.
The next morning, as soon as sunlight began trickling down through the trees, we jumped up. We
hurried out of the tent and began to pack.
I started to fold up the tent—but stopped when I saw something strange on the ground.
“Hey—!” I called out to Chip and Shawn. “Look!”
I pointed to the footprints in the soft dirt. Two pairs that led from the woods to the front of
our tent.
The Forest Rangers’ prints.
www