"There were two large blue lights, of such an unnatural color and appearance as to attract instant attention, flitting about up the valley. They would seem to skim along in long, undulating swells, like the flight of swallows, often rising hundreds of feet in the air, but always darting back to the base of the butte. We were relieved to know it was not Indians, and thinking it was one of those gaseous or igneous phenomena peculiar to water-courses, we did not investigate further, but only regarded their appearance with curiosity.
"Their visits finally reached our premises, and I was horrified to see them hovering about the house later in the season; but all our attempts to approach them were frustrated, for they would recede as we advanced; then we really began to feel how very unaccountable they were, and became perplexed with the mystery. This state of affairs continued until Christmas eve, 1852. As I was standing at a window with Hugh in my arms, I saw the two lights come flitting down the valley together. When they reached a point close to the house they halted, and, after hovering about together for a while, the larger light darted off eastward, and was never seen again. The lesser one remained flitting about the house, or to and fro between here and Antelope Butte. Until, one night in May, 1854, the light, after hovering near by, disappeared forever. That very night Mora was born. Seeing a resemblance in her childish face to that within the locket—a likeness that has increased with her age, until now she is the very image of poor, dead Ivarene—we named her Morelia (shortened to Mora by her friends), a name that was engraved and set with rubies upon the locket. We thought this the name, of course, of the female face within the locket, but from the Journal of Ivarene it is apparent that it was the name of her dead mother instead.
"This precious locket had been flung at my feet by Olin Estill, a renegade nephew of my husband, whom he had discarded on account of his vicious tendencies, and who had been leading a mysterious existence, connected, I now fear, with a band of outlaws that committed the massacre at the corral. He had been absent from our house several months, until the day after our return he suddenly appeared at the tent-door, and, after glaring at me a moment, had flung the locket at my feet, then, with a blood-chilling shriek, had fled away. We never saw him alive after that day; but his skeleton, torn asunder by wolves and barely recognizable, was found months after, and buried upon a hill-top near here."
"Did you never search Antelope Butte?" Clifford asked, with grave thoughtfulness depicted in his face.
"No; we never did, although we once talked of doing so, but forgot it soon in the anxiety and care of our life," she answered.
"I shall do so to-morrow," he said, "for I believe the mystery of their fate is hidden there. Yes, Bruce and Ivarene must have died some terrible death there at that bluff, and I shall never rest until the cloud that wraps their fate is dispelled."
On his return home he related to his parents the story which Mrs. Estill had told. When he had finished, his mother was pale with a strange excitement; and his father exclaimed in a hoarse voice of agitation:—
"Clifford, you should make a careful search on Antelope Butte in the morning. I fear that Bruce and Ivarene perished there."
"My son, I never have told you that only a few months before you were born just such a light flashed into my room as the one that flitted about the Estill ranch," said Mrs. Warlow, pale and trembling with emotion. "It was on Christmas Eve, 1852, that I was sitting in the firelit room waiting your father's return, when I saw a pale blue haze dart past the window, hover a moment, then return; and as I raised the sash I seemed to be smothered by a flash of thick, luminous fog, and fell prostrated as by a stroke of lightning. I did not lose consciousness, however, but called one of the negro women, who helped me to a lounge, and lit the lamp. I was nervous about the occurrence; but your father explained the phenomenon as being only a collection of natural gas, generated in damp localities. The light flitted about for a few months; but on the night of your birth, Clifford, it disappeared, and was never seen again. How strange that one of those lights should disappear from her house that night, and appear at mine, hundreds of miles away! Then the similar circumstances under which those mysterious halos vanished—the very night, it appears, of your birth and that of Mora! She was born in May, 1854, so Mrs. Estill says."
"We must search Antelope Butte in the morning," said Clifford, trying to conceal his agitation and to speak calmly; "for I fear that the final tragedy of Bruce and Ivarene was enacted there. I dread the discovery that we may make, while, at the same time, I long to unravel the dark mystery which enwraps their fate." Then he hurriedly left the room and sought slumber in the quiet of his own bed-chamber; but it was in vain, for strange fancies kept him awake and thoughtful while the hours slowly dragged by.