"I'll have to be on the move, Courtney. Here comes Bill Foss. He's
been telephonin' to Litchtown, down the river. I do wish you'd go
over and see Lucinda. She'll be mighty grateful to you."
"Don't fail to call on me, Mr. Vick, if there's anything I can do,"
called out Courtney after the moving machine.
He did not take his eyes from Alix until she disappeared through
the library door. The horse, a very fine animal, was wet with sweat.
He could see, even at that distance, the "lather" on her flanks.
"Any news?" he inquired of Pollock, as that worthy came up panting.
"Nope. Alix Crown is just back from Jim Bagley's. Some one said
a hired man of his had seen a woman walking across the pasture
yesterday just before dark--out near the old Windom place,--but it
couldn't have been Rosie Vick because she had no way to get across
the river except by the ferry, and she didn't come that way, Joe
Burk swears. Alix saw this hired man and he says it was almost dark
and he couldn't be sure whether it was a man or a woman."
A greyish pallor spread over Courtney's face. He turned away
abruptly and hurried down the street. He remembered the "skiff"
that belonged to young Cale, salvaged some years before on the
abatement of a February flood. On more than one occasion he had
taken Rosabel out on the river in this clumsy old boat, twice at
least to the base of Quill's Window where she had refused to land
because of the dread she had for the gruesome place.
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