Such a strong, pretty, wind-tanned young thing she was!
How long ago was it? Not two months....He lit a cigarette and
resumed his way, the shadow of a fond smile lingering in his eyes.
Rounding the curve, he came to that side of the stone hill which
faced up the river. He had passed many small, shallow niches along
the base of the eminence, miniature caves from which oozed what
might well have been described as sweat. There were, besides, deep
upright slashes in the side of the rock, higher than his head,
suggesting to the imagination the vain effort of some unhappy giant
to burst through the walls of his rocky prison,--some monster of
a man who now lay dead in the heart of the hill. The turn took him
farther away from the river.
He was looking now into the tops of several tall sycamores that
rose from the low ground at the foot of the hill. Extending far to
the north along the river was a fringe of these much be-sung trees.
The space between the straight face of the cliff and the edge of
the ledge on which he stood was not more than seven or eight feet.
It was possible, he perceived, for one to continue along and down
this natural path to the bottom of the hill, coming out among the
trees in the low ground. The descent, however, was a great deal
more precipitous than the ascent from the other direction.
Now that he was immediately below the cave known as Quill's
Window, he was surprised to find that the cliff was not absolutely
perpendicular.
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