“Don’t be a goose, Ann,” said Rudolf stoutly, though he was really beginning to feel worried himself.  “You know they are only dreams if they are bad.  What can a dream do, anyway?  They’re not real.”

“Oh, they’re real enough,” sighed little Ann.  “Sometimes the things in dreams are real-er than real things.  I’m ’fraid enough of real cows, but they can’t walk up-stairs like the dream cows can—­and, oh, I remember the dream I dreamed about the Dentist-man, after I had my tooth pulled, the one father gave me the dollar for—­and—­”

“Bother!” said Rudolf.  “I’ve had lots worse dreams than cows and dentists.  P’licemen and Indian chiefs, and—­oh, heaps of things, and I didn’t really mind ’em, either, but then I’m braver than—­”

“Sh!” interrupted Ann, stopping and catching at Rudolf’s arm.  “I hear something—­something queer.  Listen!”

[Illustration:  “I hear something—­something queer.”]

Rudolf listened.  “I don’t hear anything,” he said at last.  “What was it like?”

“Oh, such a creepy, crawly sound, and—­Oh, Ruddy—­there is a face—­see it?  A horrid little face peeping out at us from behind that tree!”

Rudolf saw the face too, a winking, blinking, leering, little face much like the one that had grinned at Ann from the post of the big bed not so very long ago.

All at once as the children looked about them, they began to see faces everywhere, faces in the crotches of the trees, faces where the branches crossed high above their heads, faces even in the undergrowth about their feet.  It reminded Rudolf of the puzzle pictures he and Ann were so fond of studying where you have to look and look before you can find the hidden people, but when once you have found them you wonder how you could have been so stupid as not to have spied them long before.  He heard distinctly now the noises Ann had heard.  It was as if the hidden places of the wood were full of small live things which were gathering together and coming toward the children from every direction, closing them in on every side.  Then somebody laughed in a high cracked voice just behind them, one of Ann’s curls was sharply pulled, and Rudolf’s precious sword was plucked from his hand and tossed upon the ground.  Still they could see no bodies to which the little faces could belong, and they began to feel very queer indeed.

Then came the laugh again, repeated a number of times and coming now from directly over their heads where the branches of a great beech tree swept almost to the ground.  Rudolf and Ann looked up just in time to catch sight of the queer little creatures who were looking down at them from between the beech leaves.  It was no wonder they had been so hard to see, for they were dressed in tight-fitting suits of fur exactly the color of the bark, and had small pointed fur hoods upon their heads which made them look very much like squirrels.  Even now that the children had spied them out, it was impossible to examine them closely for they were never quiet, never in the same place more than an instant, but swung themselves restlessly from bough to bough, then to the ground and back again in two jumps, peeping, peering, racing each other along the branches, all the time without the slightest noise other than was made by their light feet among the leaves and the two laughs the children had heard.