“But if something terrible always happens when that turquoise eye looks at an intruder,” Etta said, “aren’t you afraid something terrible will happen now?”
“I reckon I would, if I believed the yarn,” Jerry replied. “Let’s see! Where was it?”
“In the back wall, gazing straight out of the front door,” Mary reminded him.
“Well, it isn’t there now anyway.” Harry fearlessly had crossed the small bare room to investigate.
“But it must have been there,” Dick insisted. “Don’t you remember that Smart Aleky fellow who did climb up and who really did fall over the cliff, paralyzed, when he saw the Evil Eye?”
“I reckon we do,” Jerry agreed. Having found a stout stick cane in one corner, he poked it into the sand that covered the floor.
“Hi-ho!” he cried. “I see what’s happened. The Eye fell off of the wall and is buried here in the sand.”
“Bully for you!” Dick shouted, and before any of them could stop him, he had seized the fateful stone and had turned the flashlight full upon it. Mary screamed and clutched Dora, but they had all looked at the Eye and it had looked at them, yet nothing had happened.
Dora, secretly proud of Dick’s courage, asked, “What is it made of?”
“You impostor!” Dick hissed at the Eye. “You are only adobe with a blue stone in your middle.” Then calmly he pocketed it as he grinningly announced, “Nobody objecting, I’m going to keep it for Lucky Stone and a paper weight.”