“Better not lift the sacred veil of family secrets, Polly,” Isabel replied, solemnly. “You never can tell what sort of a skeleton will pop out at you and do a war dance.”
“There simply couldn’t be a skeleton there,” insisted Polly. “Two quiet, dear, well-bred old ladies from Virginia, who won’t speak to each other! Why, I don’t think it’s Christianlike, and here Miss Honoria trots off to Trinity every Sunday and is Chairman of the which and t’other committees, and Mrs. Sandy is the Lord’s right hand out here, Mrs. Murray declares. Surely, it isn’t right for them to scrap and fall out just like we girls do.”
“Ask her about it, Polly; you won’t be happy until you find out,” said Ruth placidly, and Polly smiled and said nothing more, but she made up her mind then that she certainly would ask, the first quiet chance she got.
The very last day of that week, Archie rode over after the mail, and there was a letter from the Doctor in answer to Polly’s. He had been greatly interested in the news of her discovery, he wrote. As near as he could figure it out, off hand, the ranch valley, and range to the north where the gulch lay, belonged to the same sandstone drift he had proposed working in about two hundred miles west.
“How can it be the same?” asked Sue. “Two hundred miles!”
“If he says so, it must be so,” Polly replied, decidedly. “He says the bone is apparently the same character and formation as other fossils found up here, and he will come up himself next week, and take a look at it.”
“What’s that noise?” asked Ted suddenly, going to the open door, and listening. There was no light inside, but out of doors the stars shone clearly. They listened, almost holding their breath to hear the far-off sound of music. It was some one singing far up on the road, and all at once Polly whispered:
“Maybe it’s that herder coming after his baking powder.”
They all laughed, and then listened again. Nights were their one time now for consultation and conclave, and they usually enjoyed a good talk after they reached the little guest cabin.
“It sounds like somebody singing hymns,” Ruth said. “They hear it too, over at the other house. I can see lights moving.”