"Alice, you were right in what you said about George," she went on slowly. "I can hardly believe it myself yet. Leslie Grey has only been dead eight months, and yet here I am thinking all day long of another man. I believe I am utterly heartless--worthless."

"Well?"

"Well, it's just this. I am not worth an honest man's love. I used to think I worshipped the ground poor Leslie walked on--I'm sure I loved him to distraction," the girl went on pa.s.sionately. "Very well; suppose George asked me to marry him and I consented. In all probability, in the light of what has gone before, I should be tired of him in a year, and then--and then----"

"You're talking nonsense now, Prue," said Alice. She was alarmed at the other's tone. The beautiful face of her friend was quite pale, and sharp lines were drawn about the mouth.

"I'm not talking nonsense," the other went on in a tense, bitter tone.

"What I say is true. In less than eight months I have forgotten the dead. I have done nothing to discover the murderer who robbed me of a husband and lover. I have simply forgotten--forgotten him. Put yourself in my place--put your Robb in Leslie's place. What would you have done?"

Alice thought seriously before she answered.

"I should never have rested until I had avenged his death," she said at last, and a hard glitter shone in her eyes. Then a moment after she smiled. "But it is different. I don't think you really loved Leslie Grey. You merely thought you did."

"That only makes it worse," the other retorted. Prudence's face was alight with inflexible resolve. "My debt to the dead must be paid.

I see it now in a light in which it has never presented itself to me before. I must prove myself to myself before--before----" She broke off, only to resume again with a fierce and pa.s.sionate earnestness of which Alice had never believed her capable. "I can never marry George Iredale with Leslie's unavenged death upon my conscience. I could never trust myself. George may love me now; I believe I love him, but----No, Alice, I will never marry him until my duty to Leslie Grey is fulfilled. This shall be my punishment for my heartless forgetfulness."

Alice surveyed her friend for some seconds without speaking. Then she burst out into a scathing protest--

"You are mad, Prue,--mad, mad, utterly mad. You would throw away a life's happiness for the mere shadow of what you are pleased to consider a duty. Worse, you would destroy a man's happiness for a morbid phantasm. What can you do towards avenging Leslie's death? You hold no clue. What the police have failed to fathom, how can you hope to unravel? If I were a man, do you know what I'd do to you? I'd take you by the shoulders and shake you until that foolish head of yours threatened to part company with your equally foolish body. You should have thought of these things before, and not now, when you realize how fond you are of George, set about wrecking two healthy lives. Oh, Prue, you are--are--a fool! And I can scarcely keep my temper with you." Alice paused for want of breath and lack of vocabulary for vituperation. Prudence was looking out across the water. Her expression was quite unchanged. With all the warped illogicalness of the feminine mind she had discovered the path in which she considered her duty to lie, and was resolved to follow it.

"I have a better clue than you suppose, Alice," she said thoughtfully, "the clue of his dying words. I understood his reference to the Winnipeg _Free Press_. That must be the means by which the murderer is discovered. They were not horse-thieves who did him to death. And I will tell you something else. The notice in that paper to which he referred--you know--is even now inserted at certain times. The man or men who cause that notice to be inserted in the paper were in some way responsible for his death."

There was a moment's pause. Then Alice spoke quite calmly.

"Tell me, Prue, has George proposed yet?"

"No."

"Ah!" And Alice smiled broadly and turned her eyes towards the setting sun. When she spoke again it was to draw attention to the time. As though by common consent the matter which had been under discussion was left in abeyance.

"It is time to be moving," the girl said. "See, the sun will be down in an hour. Let us have tea and then we'll saddle-up."

Tea was prepared, and by the time the sun dipped below the horizon the horses were re-saddled and all was ready for the return journey. They set out for home. Alice was in the cheeriest of spirits, but Prudence was pre-occupied, even moody. That afternoon spent in the peaceful wilds of the "back" country had left its mark upon her. All her life--her world--seemed suddenly to have changed. It was as though this second coming of love to her had brought with it the banking clouds of an approaching storm. The two rode Indian fashion through the woods, and neither spoke for a long time; then, at last, it was Alice who ventured a protest.

"Where are you leading us to, Prue?" she asked. "I am sure this is not the way we came."

Prudence looked round; she seemed as though she had only just awakened from some unpleasant dream.

"Not the way?" she echoed. Then she drew her horse up sharply. She was alert in an instant. "I'm afraid you're right, Al." Then in a tone of perplexity, "Where are we?"

Alice stared at her companion with an expression of dismay.

"Oh, Prue, you've gone and lost us--and the sun is already down."

Prudence gazed about her blankly for a few moments, realizing only too well how truly her companion had spoken. She had not the vaguest notion of the way they had come. The forest was very dark. The day-long twilight which reigned beneath the green had darkened with the shadows of approaching night. There was no opening in view anywhere; there was nothing but the world of tree-trunks, and, beneath their horses' feet, the soft carpet of rotting vegetation, whilst every moment the gloom was deepening to darkness--a darkness blacker than the blackest night.

"What shall we do?" asked Alice, in a tone of horror. Then: "Shall we go back?"

Prudence shook her head. Her prairie instincts were roused now.

"No; come along; give your mare her head. Our horses will find the way."

They touched the animals sharply, and, in response, they moved forward unhesitatingly. The old mare Alice was riding took the lead, and the journey was continued. The gloom of the forest communicated something of its depressing influence to the travellers. There was no longer any attempt at talk. Each was intent upon ascertaining their whereabouts and watching the alert movements of the horses' heads and ears. The darkness had closed in in the forest with alarming suddenness, and, in consequence, the progress was slow; but, in spite of this, the a.s.surance with which the horses moved on brought confidence to the minds of the two girls. Prudence was in no way disturbed. Alice was not quite so calm. For an hour they threaded their way through the endless maze of trees. They had climbed hills and descended into valleys, but still no break in the dense foliage above. They had just emerged from one hollow, deeper and wider than the rest, and were slowly ascending a steep hill. Prudence was suddenly struck by an idea.

"Alice," she said, "I believe we are heading for the ranch. The valleys all run north and south hereabouts. We are travelling westwards."

"I hope so," replied the other decidedly; "we shall then be able to get on the right trail for home. This is jolly miserable. O--oh!"

The girl's exclamation was one of horror. A screech-owl had just sent its dreadful note in melancholy waves out upon the still night air. It started low, almost pianissimo, rose with a hideous crescendo to fortissimo, and then died away like the wail of a lost soul. It came from just ahead of them and to the right. Alice's horse shied and danced nervously. Prudence's horse stood stock still. Then, as no further sound came, they started forward again.

"My, but those owls are dreadful things," said Alice. "I believe I nearly fainted."

"Come on," said Prudence. "After all they are only harmless owls." Her consolatory words were as much for the benefit of her own nerves as for those of her friend.

The brow of the hill was pa.s.sed and they began to descend the other side. Suddenly they saw the twinkling of stars ahead. Alice first caught sight of the welcome clearing.

"An opening at last, Prue; now we shall find out where we are." A moment later she turned again. "A light," she said. "That must be the ranch. Quick, come along."

The blackness of the wood gave place to the starlit darkness of the night. They were about to pa.s.s out into the open when suddenly Alice's horse came to a frightened stand. For an instant the mare swerved, then she reared and turned back whence she had come. Prudence checked her horse and looked for what had frightened the other animal.

A sight so weird presented itself that she suddenly raised one hand to her face and covered her eyes in nervous terror. Alice had regained the mastery of her animal and now drew up alongside the other. She looked, and the sharp catching of her breath told of what she saw.

Suddenly she gripped Prudence's arm and drew the girl's hand from before her face.

"Keep quiet, Prue," she whispered. "What is this place?"

"The Owl Hoot graveyard. This is the Haunted Hill."

"And those?" Alice was pointing fearfully towards the clearing.

"Are----Oh, come away, I can't stand it."

But neither girl made a move to go. Their eyes were fixed in a gaze of burning fascination upon the scene before them. Dark, almost black, the surrounding woods threw up in relief the clearing lit by the stars. But even so the scene was indistinct and uncertain. A low broken fence surrounded a small patch of ground, in the middle of which stood a ruined log-hut. Round the centre were scattered half-a-dozen or more tumbled wooden crosses, planted each in the centre of an elongated mound of earth. Here and there a slab of stone marked the grave of some dead-and-gone resident of Owl Hoot, and a few shrubs had sprung up as though to further indicate these obscure monuments. But it was not these things which had filled the spectators with such horror. It was the crowd of silent flitting figures that seemed to come from out of one of the stone-marked graves, and pa.s.s, in regular procession, in amongst the ruins of the log-hut, and there disappear. To the girls' distorted fancy they seemed to be shrouded human forms. Their faces were hidden by reason of their heads being bent forward under the pressure of some strange burden which rested on their shoulders. Forty of these gruesome phantoms rose from out of the ground and pa.s.sed before their wildly-staring eyes and disappeared amidst the ruins. Not a sound was made by their swift-treading feet.

They seemed to float over the ground. Then all became still again.

Nothing moved, nor was there even the rustle of a leaf upon the boughs above. The stars twinkled brightly, and the calm of the night was undisturbed. Alice's grip fell from her companion's arm. Her horse reared and plunged, then, taking the bit between its teeth, it set off down the hill in the direction of Iredale's house. The light which had burned in one of the windows had suddenly gone out, and there was nothing now to indicate the way, but the mare made no mistake.

Prudence gave her horse its head and followed in hot pursuit.

Both animals came to a stand before the door of the barn behind the house, where, to the girls' joy, they found the ferret-faced Chintz apparently awaiting them.

Alice was almost in a fainting condition, but Prudence was more self-possessed. She merely told the little man that they had lost their way, and asked his a.s.sistance to guide them out of the valley to where the trail to Loon d.y.k.e Farm began. Such was the unexpected ending of their picnic.

CHAPTER XI

CANINE VAGARIES