For the second time that day she stuffed herself, finishing up with ’maters and berries, and there was still some of everything but the fish left over for breakfast. The cornbread, which she split with Jeb, filled in all the rest of the corners.

Jeb rummaged under the seat, which seemed to be a mysterious place that held practically anything, and came up with a folded bit of old canvas she could put between her and the pile of vegetation. When she lay down, it was no worse than her corn-shuck mattress at home, though it seemed strange to be sleeping in her dress.

She said her prayers lying down and silently, because she didn’t want to disturb Jeb, and she made sure to include Jeb and Cap’n Clem in her “God blesses” because both of them had been so good to her on this trip, Clem not charging a fare for her and all, though what she would have paid for a fare with, she had no idea. She heard Jeb grunt and snort for a while as he got himself comfortable, and then there was silence filled only by crickets and . . .

. . . and strange sounds.

She hadn’t noticed them so much when she and Jeb were eating, but the night was full of sound. Some, she did know: the peeps of little frogs and toads, the louder croaks of big ones, and the booming of bullfrogs. And crickets. But there were other noises out there she’d never heard before, and some of them were hair-raising enough to wake her right out of drowsiness. Hisses and screeches, and a weird huh-huh-huh-huhHOO-ah that put the hair on her head straight up.

Bears? Panthers?

Wisht Jeb wasn’t asleep . . .

But she heard him snoring away, and she heard Daisy shifting her weight and making smacking noises, and it finally occurred to her that if the mule wasn’t alarmed, there probably wasn’t anything out there to be alarmed by.

And she started to relax. As she started to relax, she started to get sleepy again. And just as she was about to fall asleep, she noticed how there were stars peeping through all of the branches overhead.

Wait . . .

There was a dense canopy of leaves over them, enough to block out all the sun by daylight. So how could there be stars shining through the leaves now?

And . . . those stars were in pairs!

Pairs of eyes!

Dozens and dozens of them, and what she had taken for twinkling was the eyes blinking now and again.

She absolutely froze.

What . . . are . . . those?

She stared at the eyes. The eyes stared back, blinking every now and again.

She could not have told how long she lay there, staring at all those eyes, but at some point exhaustion overcame her.

The next thing she knew, she was curled up, having somehow wrapped the old canvas around herself, and had awoken to the smell of the campfire, the sound of Jeb moving about, and birdsong.