"Why, Cliff, you talk like a heathen!" replied Rob, vehemently, who, though addicted to the vice of swimming on the Sabbath, 'hooking' watermelons from the Mennonites, and hiding Easter eggs, was still strictly orthodox to his boot-heels. "So you think," he continued, "that a human soul may take the form of a panther or a pauper—whichever the spirit most resembles—and be cast and recast over and over again, like an old piece of boiler-iron, until at last it becomes—well, just what, I'd like to know?"
"A good Christian being that progresses towards perfection, and learns wisdom from his former mistakes, I guess," replied Clifford, as they turned the horse into the pasture and sought the house. As they came into the yard, he added: "If there is one spot on the continent that should be haunted, it certainly is the old Stone Corral and the near-by crossing of the Santa Fe and Abilene Trails; for there has been more crime and cruel deviltry committed there than upon any other square mile in the Western world."
The next morning broke with a cloudless sky, balmy and serene. A light wind from the south-west lifted the ribbon of vapor along the Cottonwood, and wafted the fresh and perfumed odors of wild hop-vine and water-mint, desert-sage and sand-plum, over the garden and into the Warlow breakfast-room, where Clifford was narrating to his horrified parents and sister the particulars of that unreal and mystery-wrapped scene which he had witnessed the night before.
"It all looks so unreal in this clear daylight that I am almost ashamed to repeat it," said Clifford, with a nervous laugh; but the hearers knew by the look of earnest gravity on his face that there could have been no mistake or deception as to his witnessing a sight that ever was a mystery to all.
"Well, this is a strange story indeed," said the colonel; "but, my boy, you must have been asleep unconsciously, and when you awoke your mind was in that abnormal state in which an optical illusion would have seemed like reality. An illusion of this nature is very hard to combat, from its very uncertainty; and we can only reason, from general principles, that it was a half-waking dream."
The preparations for the picnic put an end to any further discussion, and at ten the grounds were enlivened by a throng of people, all in their happiest mood and best attire.
When the Estill carriage came on the ground, Clifford hurried forward and assisted Miss Estill to alight; then, after shaking hands with Mrs. Estill, who excused her husband's absence by saying that he had not returned from the Comanche Pool, whither he had gone a week before, he found a seat for the elder lady, and disappeared with Mora on the pretext of boat-riding.
They walked in silence to where his boat was tied to the trunk of a weeping elm. As Clifford helped her into the seat, her warm clasp sent a thrill to his heart that caused a hot flush to mount to his face; but it soon receded, leaving him paler and more care-worn than ever. But Mora noticed that his cravat of dainty lawn was tied with that precision only attained by a thorough man of fashion, and the spray of snowy elder-bloom, late but fragrant, combined with a solitary pansy-shaped flower, pale blue with a fleck of gold at the heart, into a boutonnière that denoted a taste refined and fastidious in its wearer.
They shot out into the narrow stream under Clifford's vigorous strokes, and skimmed lightly along through the silver-linked pools, shaded by trees that were smothered by poison-ivy and wild-grape vines, that trailed in the water with their purple-laden tendrils of ripening fruit. At length they reached the bank near young Warlow's dwelling, after a journey which he thought had lasted for an age, but which, to be correct, was just four minutes in duration. There had been an attempt on her part at conversation, but seeing the far-away look in his eyes and the expression of haggard misery on his white, handsome face, she became more cold and reserved than ever, and sat with averted face, trailing a gaudy cardinal-flower through the water.
On landing, he again encountered her hand, which did not fail to send an electric shock through him, as he assisted her ashore, and for a moment he thought that she held his hand longer than the occasion required, and he raised his eyes to her face with a quick flash of joy; but the downcast look and pale cheeks which he saw, sent the blood back to his heart with a sickening chill, and they walked together in silence up toward his dwelling.