suaded him to take her place. At first he protested with a rapid play of his hands and shoulders.
"You tell me to deeg, Señorita,—I deeg. But only evil will come."
But finally he had taken his shovel, and from where she sat, under the flap of the tent, she could see his red bandana and shaking earrings, bobbing up and down in unison with the bald pate of old Benson and the straw coloured thatch of young Jack Beam, a few inches above the latest trench.
At three, Ben threw down his pick, surveyed the gaping holes in disgust, and announced that he was going to climb to the cavern once more, to make sure of the forgotten markings.
In vain, this time, did Sally protest. Finding him adamant, she insisted that she would go, too. However, he laughed at her premonitions and refused her company, setting out alone through the wooded tangle, northward towards the mountain.
And now as the girl sat there, the old, vague forebodings assailed her in overwhelming force, spoiling the golden holiday, as a swarm of pestiferous mayflies suddenly mars for the forest wanderer the sylvan beauty of a woodland scene. All utterly unreasonable and idiotic, she tried to tell herself, but without any responding conviction.
In her New England home, common sense was a quality as indispensable to existence as a roof to a dwelling. But now it seemed quite as frail and as much of a mummery as superstition in her old life would have been deemed. By some strange witchery of the clime, values were uncannily reversed.
