It had suddenly occurred to her that if this man knew something about this mysterious little girl he should be called back and questioned.

She did not call him back. She was afraid, very much afraid of that man.

"Anyway," she rea.s.sured herself, "he probably didn't mean Hallie at all.

Probably meant Mrs. McAlpin. She's been here three summers, and has been up every creek for miles around."

With this as a concluding thought, and having caught the delicious odor of spring chicken roasting on the hearth, she hurried down to supper.

As she entered the cabin, Mrs. McAlpin, who was a famous cook, lifted the lid of the small cast-iron oven that had been buried beneath the hearth coals for an hour. At once the room was filled with such delectable fragrance as only can come from such an oven.

Since the cabin had been purchased by its present owner, it had not been disfigured by a stove. An immense stone fireplace graced the corner of each of the four rooms. The cooking was done on the hearth of the room used as kitchen and dining room.

"Isn't it wonderful!" Marion exclaimed as she hung her sweater on the deer's antlers which served as a coat rack. "Just to live like this! To be primitive as our ancestors were! I shall never forget it, not as long as I live!"

Supper was over. Darkness had fallen "from the wings of night" when Marion slipped alone out of the whipsawed cabin.

As she entered the shadows that lay across the path that led away from the cabin, she caught sound of a movement off to the right.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she did not pause. The message she had to send could not be longer delayed. And yet, as she hurried on, she could not help wondering who might have been behind the bushes. Was it the prowler, he of the beady black eyes and hooked nose, who had peered in at the cabin window? If it were, what did he want? What did he mean by that strange exclamation: "Hit's her?" Had he seen Hallie? Did he know her?

Would he attempt to carry her away? She hoped not. The little girl had become a spot of sunshine in that brown old cabin.

Two hours later the proceedings of the previous night were being re-enacted. Marion's beacon fire appeared on the mountain's crest.

Florence caught it at once and flashed back her answer. There followed a half hour of signaling. At the end of this half hour Florence found herself sitting breathless among the husks in the cabin loft.

"Oh!" she breathed. "What news! The railroad is to be built. I wonder if the land is still for sale?"

"And I," she exclaimed, squaring her shoulders, "I must be afraid no longer. Somehow I must find my way down this slope to Caleb Powell's home. I must buy that land."

She patted the crinkly bills, five hundred dollars, still pinned to the inside of her blouse. Then, slipping quickly down the ladder, she stepped into the cool, damp air of night.

Yet, even as she turned to go down the mountain, courage failed her.

Above her, not so far away but that she could reach it in an hour, hung the mountain's crest. Dim, dark, looming in the misty moonlight, it seemed somehow to beckon. Beyond it, down the trail, lay home, her mountain home, and loving friends.

She had experienced thus far only distrust, captivity without apparent cause, the great fear of worse things to come.

"No," she said, "I can't go back." Her feet moved slowly up the trail.

"And yet I must!" She faced the other way. "I can't go back and say to them, 'I have no money for the school. I went on a mission and failed because I was afraid.' No, No! I can't do that."

Then, lest this last resolve should fail her, she fairly ran down the trail.

She had hurried on for fully fifteen minutes when again she paused, paused this time to consider. What plan had she? What was she to do? She did not know the way to the home of her friend, nor to the home of Caleb Powell. Indeed, she did not so much as know where she was. How, then, was she to find Caleb Powell?

"Only one way," she told herself. "I must risk it. At some cabin I must inquire my way."

Fifteen minutes later she found herself near a cabin. A dim light shone in the window. For a moment she hesitated beside the footpath that led to its door.

"No," she said at last, starting on, "I won't try that one."

She pa.s.sed three others before her courage rose to the sticking point. At last, realizing that the evening was well spent and that all would soon be in bed, she forced herself to walk boldly toward a cabin. A great bellowing hound rushed out at her and sent her heart to her mouth. The welcome sound of a man's voice silenced him.

"Who's thar?" the voice rang out.

"It's-it's I, Florence Huyler." The girl's voice trembled in spite of her effort to control it.

"Let's see." The man held a candle to her face. "Step inside, Miss."

"It-I-I can't stop," she stammered, "I-I only wanted to ask where Caleb Powell lives."

"Hey, Bill," the man turned to someone within the cabin. "Here's that girl we was lookin' for this evenin'."

"Naw 't'ain't. Don't stand to reason." The man's feet came to the floor with a crash. The girl's heart sank. She recognized the voices of the men. They were the men who had visited the deserted cabin. The hollyhock sentinel had done their bit, but all to no purpose. She was once more virtually a prisoner.

"Guess you come to the wrong cabin, Miss. We are plumb sorry, but hit are our bond an' duty to sort of ask you to come in and rest with we-all a spell. Reckon you ain't et none. Hey, Mandy! Set on a cold snack for this here young lady."

Florence walked slowly into the cabin and sank wearily into a chair. Her head, which seemed suddenly to grow heavy, sank down upon her breast. She had meant so well, and this was what fate had dealt her.

Suddenly, as she sat there filled with gloomy thoughts, came one gloomier than the rest-a thought as melancholy as a late autumn storm.

"Why did we not think of that?" she almost groaned aloud.

She recalled it well enough now. Mrs. McAlpin had once told her of the queer mixing of t.i.tles to land which existed all over the mountains. In the early days, when land was all but worthless, a man might trade a thousand acres of land for a yoke of oxen and no deed given or recorded.

"Why," Mrs. McAlpin had said, "when I purchased the little tract on which this cabin stands I was obliged to wait an entire year before my lawyer was able to a.s.sure me of a deed that would hold."

"A year!" Florence repeated to herself. "A year for a small tract! And here we are hoping to purchase a tract containing thousands of acres which was once composed of numerous small tracts. And we hope to get a deed day after to-morrow, and our commission a day later." She laughed in spite of herself.

"If we succeed in making the purchase, which doesn't seem at all likely, Mr. Dobson may be two years getting a clear t.i.tle to the land. Will he pay our commission before that? No one would expect it. And if we don't get it before that time what good will it do our school?"

"No," she told herself, facing the problem squarely, "there must be some other way; though I'll still go through with this if opportunity offers."

In her mental search for "some other way" her thoughts returned to the ancient whipsawed house on Laurel Branch. She had heard old preacher Gibson's story of Jeff Middleton's return from the Civil War with a great sack of strange gold pieces.

"Hit's hid som'ers about that ar whipsawed cabin," the tottering old mountain preacher had declared, "though whar it might be I don't rightly know. Been a huntin' of it right smart o' times and ain't never lit onto narry one of them coins yet."

"If only we could find that gold," Florence told herself, "all would be well. That is, if we win the election-if we elect our trustee."

She smiled a little at this last thought; yet it was no joking matter, this electing a trustee back here in the c.u.mberlands. Many a grave on the sun kissed hillsides, where the dogwood blooms in springtime and ripe chestnuts come rattling down in the autumn, marks the spot where some l.u.s.ty mountaineer lies buried. And it might be written on his tombstone, "He tried to elect a trustee and failed because the other man's pistol gun found its mark." Elections are hard fought in the c.u.mberlands. Many a bitter feud fight has been started over a school election.

Surely, as she sat there once more a prisoner, held by these mysterious mountaineers, there was enough to disturb her.

CHAPTER IV A STRANGE ESCAPE

Morning came at last. Florence stirred beneath the home woven covers of her bed in the mountain cabin. Then she woke to the full realization of her position.