“Gracious goodness,” Dora exclaimed with a shudder. “That was a nightmare! For cricket’s sakes, let’s talk about something pleasant so that when you go to sleep again, you won’t have another such awful dream. Now, let me see, what shall we talk about?”
“Do you know, Dora,” Mary’s voice was tense with emotion, “I keep wondering and wondering about that poor Little Bodil. If she were carried off by a robber, what do you suppose he would do with her?”
“Well, it all depends on what kind of a bandit he was,” Dora said matter-of-factly. “If he were a good robber like Robin Hood, he would have sent her away to a boarding-school somewhere to be educated, since she was only ten years old. Then he would have reformed, and when she was sixteen and very beautiful with her china-blue eyes and corn-silk-yellow hair, he would have married her.”
“How I do hope something like that did happen.” Mary’s voice sounded more natural, the tenseness and terror were gone, so Dora kept on, “I think they probably bought a ranch in—er—some beautiful valley in Mexico, or some remote place where Robin Hood wouldn’t be known and lived happily ever after.”
“I wonder if they had any children.” Mary spoke as though she really believed that Dora was unraveling the mystery. “If they had a boy and a girl, suppose, they would be our age since poor Bodil would be about fifty years old now.”
Dora laughed. “Well, we probably never will know what became of that poor little Danish girl so we might as well accept my theory as any other. Let’s try to sleep now.”
Mary was silent for several moments, and Dora was just deciding that her services as a pacifier were over and that she might try to go to sleep herself, when Mary whispered, “Dodo, do you believe that story about the Evil Eye Turquoise?”
Dora sighed softly. Here was another subject with scary possibilities. “Well, not exactly,” she acknowledged. “I don’t doubt but that the thieving tenderfoot did fall over the cliff and was paralyzed, because he hit his head against a rock or something, but I think it was his own fear of the Evil Eye Turquoise which made him fall and not any demon power the eye really had.”
“Of course, that does seem sensible,” Mary agreed. Again she was quiet and this time Dora was really dozing when she heard in a shuddery voice, “Oh-oo, Dora, I do try awfully hard to keep from thinking of that poor Sven Pedersen after he’d walled himself into his tomb and lay down to die. What if he lived a long time. I’ve read about people being buried alive and—”
“Blue Moons, Mary! What awful things you do think about!” Dora was a bit provoked. She was really sleepy, and thought she had earned a good rest for the remaining hours of the night. “Lots of animals creep away into far corners of dark caves when they know they’re going to die. That’s better than lying around helpless somewhere, and have wolves tearing you to pieces or vultures swirling around over you, dropping lower and lower, waiting for you to take your last breath. For my part, I think Sven Pedersen did a very sensible thing. In that way he was sure of a decent burial. Now, Mary dear, much as I love you, if you so much as peep again tonight, I’m going to take my pillow and go into the spare front bedroom and leave you all to your lonely.”