“Mary, there’s a grave there!”

“Yes; when folks die they just naturally have a grave.”  A cold, icy light flickered in Mary’s eyes; she reached and took up another log and carefully placed it.

“Mary, I went to Thunder Peak, I was following the trail.  I came suddenly into the open and I saw an old woman.  She touched me”—­here Nancy shuddered.  “She—­she seemed to—­to think she knew me.  She called me a queer name.  I cannot remember it.  I was terribly frightened.  Are you quite, quite sure the old woman died, Mary?”

“She died, she surely died.  Old women ain’t such precious sights among the hills.  Like as not it was someone from Huckleberry Bald, t’other side of Thunder, as has taken over the deserted cabin and just wants to frighten folks, like you, off.  They are mighty cute, those old women on Bald.  They want their own place, and—­and they sometimes shoot at any one that comes nigh.”

The voice and words were cool and even.  Nancy drew a long breath.

“Oh, Mary,” she said, “you just take all the fear away.  I kept feeling that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone now.  Jed said”—­here Nancy wavered—­“he said the place was haunted.”

“Jed was a born fool and yo’ can’t do much with that kind.  They grows more fool-like at the end.”

Nancy laughed.

“I’m just a silly myself,” she said rising and stretching her pretty arms over her head as if awakening from sleep.  Then: 

“Mary, I’m going to New York next winter.  Going to have—­a wonderful time.”

And now Mary looked up and her eyes brightened.

“At last,” she muttered; “you’re to have your chance!”

“My—­chance, Mary?”

“Your chance—­same as Miss Joan.”

And a moment later Mary was watching Nancy as she went singing down the river road.

“Gawd!” she muttered, and her yellowish skin paled.  “Gawd!  What has she come back for?—­what?” and Mary’s eyes lifted to Thunder Peak.  Later she made ready for a long walk—­she knew the trail to Thunder Peak would be hard after the storm.

CHAPTER XV

“Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

And Mary’s was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.

There had been much damage done by the storm.  Trees were lying across the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go out of one’s way.  But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to make a wide detour.  She was thinking, thinking—­patching her bits of knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.

Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded “her,” Mary patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful quilts.

“Yes; no!” Then a stolid nodding of the head.