The boys shouted at the suggestion.
"And she could do it well enough if it would be necessary," said Ranald, facing square round on Don, and throwing up his head after his manner when battle was in the air, while the red blood showed in his dark cheek and his eyes lit up with a fierce gleam.

Don read the danger signal.
"I'm not saying she couldn't," he hurried to say, apologetically, "but it would be funny, wouldn't it ?" "Well," said Ranald, relenting and smiling a little, "it would be keeping her busy at times." "When the deer are running, eh, Ranald," said Murdie, good-naturedly.
"But Ranald's right, boys," he continued, "give the man a chance, say I." "There's our bells," cried Thomas Finch, as the deep, musical boom of the Finch's sleigh-bells came through the bush.

"Come on, Hughie, we'll get them at the cross." And followed by Hughie and the boys from the north, he set off for the north cross-roads, where they would meet the Finch's bob-sleighs coming empty from the saw-mill, to the great surprise and unalloyed delight of Mr.and Mrs.Bushy, who from their crotch in the old beech had watched with some anxiety the boys' unusual conduct.
"There they are, Hughie," called Thomas, as the sleighs came out into the open at the crossroads.

"They'll wait for us.

They know you're coming," he yelled, encouragingly, for the big boys had left the smaller ones, a panting train, far in the rear, and were piling themselves upon the Finch's sleighs, with never a "by your leave" to William John--familiarly known as Billy Jack--Thomas' eldest brother, who drove the Finch's team.
Thomas' home lay a mile north and another east from the Twentieth cross-roads, but the winter road by which they hauled saw-logs to the mill, cut right through the forest, where the deep snow packed hard into a smooth track, covering roots and logs and mud holes, and making a perfect surface for the sleighs, however heavily loaded, except where here and there the pitch-holes or cahots came.