All too suggestive in itself was the shape of the hole the girl was digging; there was no need of the silent proof of its purpose which lay beside her to tell the watchers that she worked alone in the midst of the for-est solitude upon a human grave.The thing wrapped in an old quilt lay silently waiting for the making of its last bed.
And as the three watched her other eyes watched them and the digging girl--wide, awestruck eyes, filled with a great terror, yet now and again half closing in the shrewd expression of cunning that is a hall mark of crafty ignorance.
And as they watched, their over-wrought nerves sud-denly shuddered to the grewsome clanking of a chain from the dark interior of the hovel.
The youth, holding tight to Bridge's sleeve, strove to pull him away.
"Let's go back," he whispered in a voice that trembled so that he could scarce control it.
"Yes, please," urged the girl."Here is another path leading toward the north.We must be close to a road.
Let's get away from here."
The digger paused and raised her head, listening, as though she had caught the faint, whispered note of hu-man voices.She was a black haired girl of nineteen or twenty, dressed in a motley of flowered calico and silk, with strings of gold and silver coins looped around her olive neck.Her bare arms were encircled by bracelets--some cheap and gaudy, others well wrought from gold and silver.From her ears depended ornaments fash-ioned from gold coins.Her whole appearance was bar-baric, her occupation cast a sinister haze about her; and yet her eyes seemed fashioned for laughter and her lips for kissing.
The watchers remained motionless as the girl peered first in one direction and then in another, seeking an ex-planation of the sounds which had disturbed her.Her brows were contracted into a scowl of apprehension which remained even after she returned to her labors, and that she was ill at ease was further evidenced by the frequent pauses she made to cast quick glances to-ward the dense tanglewood surrounding the clearing.
At last the grave was dug.The girl climbed out and stood looking down upon the quilt wrapped thing at her feet.For a moment she stood there as silent and motionless as the dead.Only the twittering of birds dis-turbed the quiet of the wood.Bridge felt a soft hand slipped into his and slender fingers grip his own, He turned his eyes to see the boy at his side gazing with wide eyes and trembling lips at the tableau within the clearing.Involuntarily the man's hand closed tightly upon the youth's.
And as they stood thus the silence was shattered by a loud and human sneeze from the thicket not fifty feet from where they stood.Instantly the girl in the clearing was electrified into action.Like a tigress charging those who stalked her she leaped swiftly across the clearing toward the point from which the disturbance had come.
There was an answering commotion in the underbrush as the girl crashed through, a slender knife gleaming in her hand.
Bridge and his companions heard the sounds of a swift and short pursuit followed by voices, one master-ful, the other frightened and whimpering; and a moment afterward the girl reappeared dragging a boy with her --a wide-eyed, terrified, country boy who begged and blubbered to no avail.
Beside the dead man the girl halted and then turned on her captive.In her right hand she still held the menacing blade.
"What you do there watching me for?" she demanded.
"Tell me the truth, or I kill you," and she half raised the knife that he might profit in his decision by this most potent of arguments.
The boy cowered."I didn't come fer to watch you,"he whimpered."I'm lookin' for somebody else.I'm goin'
to be a dee-tectiff, an' I'm shadderin' a murderer; and he gasped and stammered: "But not you.I'm lookin' for another murderer."For the first time the watchers saw a faint smile touch the girl's lips.
"What other murderer?" she asked."Who has been murdered?""Two an' mebby three in Oakdale last night," said Willie Case more glibly now that a chance for dissemi-nating gossip momentarily outweighed his own fears.
"Reginald Paynter was murdered an' ol' man Baggs an'
Abigail Prim's missin'.Like es not she's been murdered too, though they do say as she had a hand in it, bein'
seen with Paynter an' The Oskaloosie Kid jest afore the murder."As the boy's tale reached the ears of the three hidden in the underbrush Bridge glanced quickly at his com-panions.He saw the boy's horror-stricken expression fol-low the announcement of the name of the murdered Paynter, and he saw the girl flush crimson.
Without urging, Willie Case proceeded with his story.
He told of the coming of The Oskaloosa Kid to his father's farm that morning and of seeing some of the loot and hearing the confession of robbery and killing in Oakdale the night before.Bridge looked down at the youth beside him; but the other's face was averted and his eyes upon the ground.Then Willie told of the arrival of the great detective, of the reward that had been of-fered and of his decision to win it and become rich and famous in a single stroke.As he reached the end of his narrative he leaned close to the girl, whispering in her ear the while his furtive gaze wandered toward the spot where the three lay concealed.
Bridge shrugged his shoulders as the palpable infer-ence of that cunning glance was borne in upon him.
The boy's voice had risen despite his efforts to hold it to a low whisper for what with the excitement of the ad-venture and his terror of the girl with the knife he had little or no control of himself, yet it was evident that he did not realize that practically every word he had spoken had reached the ears of the three in hiding and that his final precaution as he divulged the information to the girl was prompted by an excess of timidity and secretiveness.
