“We won't meet anyone,” he answered. “Nobody but a mountain goat would wittingly venture up this road. This poor old nag is almost dead. This is a pretty mess! How do you like the way I'm taking you to the train?”
“Is this another abduction?” she asked, sweetly, and both laughed merrily, in spite of their predicament. His haggard face, still showing the effects of illness, grew more and more troubled, and at last he said they would have to get down from the trap, not only to avoid the danger of tipping over the cliff, but to relieve the horse. In this sorry fashion they plodded along, now far above the forest, and in the cool air of the hilltops.
“There certainly must be a top to this accursed hill,” he panted. He was leading the horse by the bit, and she was bravely trudging at his side.
“There is a bend in the road up yonder, Phil,” she said.
When they turned the bend in the tortuous mountain road, both drew up sharply, with a gasp of astonishment. For a long time neither spoke, their bewildered minds struggling to comprehend the vast puzzle that confronted them. Even the fagged horse pricked up his ears and looked ahead with interest. Not three hundred yards beyond the bend stood the ruins of an enormous castle.
“It is Craneycrow!” gasped the man, leaning dizzily against the shaft of the trap. She could only look at him in mute consternation. It was Craneycrow, beyond all doubt, but what supernatural power had transferred it bodily from the squarrose hill on which it had stood for centuries, to the spot it now occupied, grim and almost grinning? “Is this a dream, Dorothy? Are we really back again?”
“I can't believe it,” she murmured. “We must be deceived by a strange resem—”
“There is Bob himself! Good heavens, this paralyzes me! Hey, Bob! Bob!”
A few minutes later a limping horse dragged his bones into the courtyard and two shame faced travelers stood before a taunting quartet, enduring their laughter, wincing under their jests, blushing like children when the shots went home. For hours they had driven in a circle, rounding the great row of hills, at last coming to the very gate from which they had started forth so confidently. They were tired and hungry and nervous.
“Did you telegraph your mother you were coming?” asked Dickey Savage.