It was still dark the next morning when Leslie awoke from a dreamless sleep—awoke suddenly, with the distinct impression that something unusual was happening. She lay perfectly still for several moments, trying to localize the sensation more definitely. In her room were two windows—a small one facing Curlew’s Nest and a large, broad one facing the sea. Leslie always had this window wide open, and her bed was so placed that she could easily look out of it.
She did so now, and noticed the first light streak of dawn along the east, and a brilliant star so close to the horizon that it seemed to be resting on the edge of the tossing ocean. Then her heart leaped and felt as if it almost turned over—for between her and the light, at the window, she descried the shape of a dark head!
Involuntarily Leslie sprang up to a sitting position. Then the tension relaxed and she drew a deep breath of relief. It was only Rags, standing on his hind legs at the window, his great shaggy head silhouetted against the light. In another instant he had uttered his low, rumbling growl of uneasiness.
“What is it, Rags? What do you see?” she called softly to him. He forsook the window for a moment and trotted over to nuzzle his head on her pillow, but almost immediately hurried back to his post at the window.
“There’s something worrying him!” she thought. “Now I wonder what it can be. Suppose—suppose it were some one around that other bungalow again! I’d better get up and see.”
She rose softly, slipped on a warm dressing-gown and slippers, and peered first out of the side window at Curlew’s Nest. But the darkness was still intense on this side, there was no tell-tale light in the chinks of the shutters, and she was forced, after watching for several moments, to conclude that nothing was amiss in this region.
Then she went to the window facing the ocean, pushed Rags aside a trifle, and cuddled down beside him on the window-seat. The dawn was growing every moment brighter. The streak of gray along the horizon had grown to a broad belt of pink, and very faintly the objects on the beach were beginning to be visible. Rags still rumbled his uneasy growl at intervals, and stared intently at something Leslie’s eye could not yet discern.
It was only by following the direction of his gaze that she presently realized there was something moving on the beach somewhere in front of Curlew’s Nest. Then her heart actually did seem to stop beating for an instant, for in the growing light she at last could distinguish a dark form moving stealthily about by the old log where Rags had dug up the “Dragon’s Secret!”
“Oh! who can it be? And what are they doing there?” she whispered distractedly to Rags. The dog’s only reply was to growl a little louder, and she promptly silenced him.
“Be a good dog, Rags! Don’t make a sound! It will rouse Aunt Marcia, and besides I must see who is there, if possible!” Rags settled down again to a quieter watch with evident reluctance.