Ransom had gone on to tell weird tales of these strange people, a dozen families in all who had leased land from a coal company and had gone up there beyond a natural stone gateway which appeared to shut them from the rest of the world. He had told how they had stayed there, never coming down to the settlements for barter and trade, and how they kept other mountain people away.

Other tales he had told, too; tales that had made her blood run cold.

There was the story of a peddler with a pack who had gone up there at nightfall and had never been seen to return, and a one-armed fiddler who had never come back.

"But couldn't they have gone out some other way?" she had asked.

"Narry a pa.s.s at the head of this branch, narry a one. Jest rocky ridges, so steep an' high that if you was to drop your hat from the top it would blow back up to you. No, Miss," he had added with a shake of his head, "don't you never go up thar!"

And yet she had somehow felt that she must and would go through the natural gateway to the little known valley of mystery.

Now, as she stood looking at the moon that shone down upon it all, she felt the lure stronger than ever.

"Some day," she whispered, "I will go up there. I feel sure that I must."

Little did she dream, as she stood there until the chill night air drove her inside, that in less than a week up there at the head of Laurel Branch she was to enter upon the strangest, most mysterious adventure of her young life.

Before she fell asleep she wondered a little about the strange experiences that had come to her on Ages Creek. Would she ever know why they had made her prisoner there? When would the t.i.tle be proved up on the Powell coal tract? Would it ever be? Would they get the commission?

CHAPTER IX BEYOND FORBIDDEN PORTALS

"Uncle Billie, has the whipsawed house an attic?"

Florence asked the question eagerly as she met her venerable friend on the creek road next day.

"Sure enough! Now has it? I most forgit." The old man scratched his head.

"It hasn't a stairway, nor an opening for a ladder, but there must be s.p.a.ce up there, and if there's s.p.a.ce there must be something there."

"Sh.o.r.e there are. Cobwebs, dust, an'-an'" the old man, startled with a sudden thought, almost lost his balance and fell over, "an' of course that ar Confederate gold. Sh.o.r.e enough. Whar else could it be?"

"You come over at five this afternoon and we'll explore that place,"

smiled Florence. "That is, if Mrs. McAlpin will permit us."

"I'll sh.o.r.e be thar at the apinted hour-sun time," Uncle Billie beamed like an excited child.

"Plum quare gold it were," he added as Florence hurried away to school.

At sight of the old log schoolhouse, all thoughts of the fabled gold were driven from her mind. The responsibilities of the day came flooding in upon her. What had been the results of yesterday's affair? She had asked Marion to visit Ballard Skidmore in his home and get his story of the quarrel with Bud Wax. She did not doubt but that Bud had been entirely in the wrong, and hoped Ballard would return to school. Bud, of course, she would never see in her school room again. Somewhat to her surprise, she found herself regretting this. There was much good in the boy. She had grown rather fond of the sight of his restless blue eyes.

"If only he did not belong, body and soul, to Black Blevens," she told herself, "one might make something of him."

Again her mind went to work on the problems directly before her. How had Black Blevens taken the affair yesterday? Had he been the silent watcher on Lookout Rock? What had this setting of a watch meant? What would his next move be?

And what of the coming election? Would there be enough voters to enable them to win? Ransom Turner had promised to make a canvas of the community and tell her how matters stood.

Her trial? Her heart sank at thought of it! To be tried by a jury with all the mountain people looking on!

"But it's all for them, for the little ones," she whispered, and was comforted.

Imagine her surprise when, upon entering the school yard, she saw Bud Wax with the larger boys, pitching rocks at a stump.

"I-I didn't think he'd come back," she whispered to Marion.

"Neither did I."

"Is Ballard coming back?"

"Yes."

"Will they fight again?" Florence's heart was in her throat. She felt that another day such as yesterday would prove her undoing.

"Ballard said he'd do his best. Bud had been teasing him for a long time.

He called him a name that no mountain man or boy will allow himself to be called. Then Ballard struck him in the face."

For a time Florence pondered the problem of further punishment for Bud.

In the end she concluded that any punishment after the destruction of his pistol would be anticlimax.

"We'll let bygones be bygones," she told Marion. "But keep your eyes open for further trouble. Why did he come back anyway?"

"Who knows?"

That day Bud was a model pupil. Quiet, far too quiet for comfort, he studied hard and recited perfectly. The day pa.s.sed as a model in the history of the school. Florence went home more puzzled than ever. On the doorstep of the whipsawed house she found Uncle Billie Gibson. He was smiling his brightest smile and glancing up at the eaves as if he expected a shower of gold to come rattling down from the shingles.

A moment later two breathless young ladies were eagerly begging Mrs.

McAlpin for permission to remove a board from the ceiling of their room that they might explore the attic of that venerable house.

Consent of the good lady was readily obtained and in a twinkle, armed with a wood chisel and hammer, they were at the job.

Have you never entered an old house whose attic has remained unexplored for years? Then you have never enjoyed the exciting dreams that come with thoughts of treasures that may be found there. Chests filled with curios from many lands; ancient trunks packed with rare old laces; a grandfather's clock; rare old books worth a fortune; period furniture that a millionaire might covet. Indeed, who knows what rare treasures may be hidden there?

As for the two girls and Uncle Billie, they were looking for but one treasure-a stack of yellow gold.

As Florence inserted the chisel in a crack and gave it a pull there came such a screech from the ancient hand-hammered nails as brought a scream of fright from Marion. The next moment the board gave way with a suddenness that all but knocked Florence from the chair upon which she was perched and showered her with an acc.u.mulation of aged dust. With a shrill cry she leaped to the floor.

Over their heads, as they regained composure, they saw a broad, black, gaping hole.

"Dark up there," said Marion with a little shudder.

"Have to use a flashlight." Florence dug down into her trunk. "Here it is."

"But it won't work."

"Battery's dead. Have to use a candle."