Her hopes flew upward and she
could not subdue the triumphant glance that swept the startled crowd
when Bill breathlessly broke the news.
Absolute quiet reigned in the cave after that. Maude cowed the prisoner
into silence with the threat to cut out her tongue if she uttered a cry.
Later, the tramp of feet could be heard on the floor of the cabin.
There was a sound of voices, loud peals of laughter, and then the noise
made by some one in the cellar that served as a blind at one end of the
cabin. After that, dead silence. At nightfall, Sam stealthily ventured
forth to reconnoitre. He came back with the report that the woods and
swamps were clear and that the searchers, if such they were, had gone
away.
"The house, since Davy's grandma's bones were stored away in that cellar
for several moons, has always been thought to be haunted. The fools
probably thought they saw a ghost--an' they're runnin' yet."
Then for the first time Rosalie realised that she was in the haunted
cabin in the swamp, the most fearsome of all places in the world to
Tinkletown, large and small. Not more than three miles from her own
fireside! Not more than half an hour's walk from Daddy Crow and others
in the warmth of whose love she had lived so long!
"It's gettin' too hot here for us," growled Sam at supper. "We've just
got to do something. I'm going out to-night to see if there's any word
from the--from the party.
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