The digger paused and raised her head, listening, as though she had caught the faint, whispered note of human 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 fashioned from gold coins. Her whole appearance was barbaric, 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 explanation 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 toward 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 disturbed 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 masterful, 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?”