And yet, as he was about to turn away from this
sombre pile, he leaned over and struck a match on one of the huge
boulders. As he was conveying the lighted sulphur match,--with
which Dowd's Tavern abounded,--to the cigarette that hung limply
from his lips, he was startled by a sharp, almost agonized cry.
It seemed to come from nowhere. He experienced the uncanny feeling
that a ghost,--the ghost that haunted Quill's Window,--standing
guard over the mound, had cried out under the pain inflicted by
that profane match.
Even as he turned to search the blazing, sunlit rock with apprehensive
eyes, a voice, shrill with anger, flung these words at him:
"What are you doing up here?"
His gaze fell upon the speaker, standing stockstill in the cloven
path below him, not twenty feet away. In his relief, he laughed.
He beheld a slim figure in riding-togs. Nothing formidable or
ghostlike in that! Nevertheless, a pair of dark blue eyes transfixed
him with indignation. They looked out from under the rim of a black
sailor hat, and they were wide and inimical.
"Did you not see that sign on the gate?" demanded the girl.
"I did," he replied, still smiling as he removed his hat,--one of
Knox's panamas. "And I owe you an apology."
She advanced to the top. He noted the riding-crop gripped rather
firmly in her clenched hand.
"No one is permitted to come up here," she announced, stopping a
few feet away.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87