A white flag waved for an instant in the clearing and the lines of his face relaxed. The sternness had given way to an expression of anticipation. The man’s eyes shifted from the clearing to the bend in the road just below the cabin. Other than that there was no movement. It would have taken a careful student to have discovered that an all-consuming curiosity was gnawing at this man’s heart. He seemed to be without a care in the world. Certainly no one could have guessed that he was suffering from a suspense which was almost unbearable.
Suddenly a slip of a girl, not more than thirteen years old, and small for her age, came running around the bend in the road. The brown of her sunburned legs twinkled in the patches of sunlight that came through the trees, and her blue-checked calico dress fluttered in the wind as she ran with unfaltering stride. It was not an impatient burst of speed at the end of a journey. She had been running steadily all the way from the village, almost two and a half miles away and nearly a thousand feet below.
At the sight of her the man arose and stretched his gaunt form to its full height. The coming of the child meant much to him, but he showed no sign of curiosity. She stopped before him with chest heaving and dark eyes aflame.
“He went to Wait’s,” she panted.
The lines in the old man’s face tightened, and he seemed to grow taller, but he made no answer.
“That was the man who came yesterday,” she continued furiously. “He bought a sack of tobacco at Wait’s this morning, and went up on the other mountain. The other one who came this morning didn’t go in nowhere. He ain’t much more than a boy.”
“Where is he?” the man asked sternly. “At the hotel?”
“No, he went there, but he only stayed a few minutes. Then he walked right through the village and started up this way. I passed him just out on the road.”
“Did he see you?”
“No,” she answered contemptuously. “I was in the brush, but he would not have seen me if I had run right by him. He was looking at the ground and frowning.”