"Cliff must be schooling his courage by staying of nights up at that old spook-ranch; but a fellow who can stand that, could pop the question to the witch of Macbeth without faltering."
"What do you mean by his popping the question, Rob?" said Maud, setting her pail of foamy milk down on the cellar-steps, while she regarded the handsome youth with a puzzled look from her round, blue eyes.
"Why just this," he replied, after "swigging" down a pint of fresh milk from his own pail, and deliberately wiping his lips with his shirt-sleeve; "Cliff has got more sand in his gizzard than most fellows; but I guess he feels too poor, or something, to talk marry to Mora Estill, so he goes mooning off up there to that old spectre's nest—just like fellows do in novels, you know," he added, lucidly.
But here the peremptory tones of his father called the young philosopher to take the colts down to the lower pasture.
When Clifford arrived at his dwelling he prepared several stakes, and fastened bits of white paper to their tops; then, securing the iron rod, he placed it with the small sticks, which he had left in the porch, and sought the dainty and comfortable bed which he owed to the thoughtful kindness of Maud and his mother.
Sinking into a profound slumber, he was only awakened by the alarm which sounded as the clock struck one. As its chime died away, he arose and stole forth into the tranquil night.
A waning moon had risen, and in its faint light the water of the brook glimmered coldly as it wimpled over the stony ford. The fluttering leaves of the old cottonwood flashed like silver, and the hoary form of the great tree, every limb of which seemed outlined in white, towered vague and ghostly above the shadows cast by the more dense foliage of ash and willows.
Clifford paused in the level glade where his father had said the graves must have been when Roger Coble passed the spot twenty-six years before. Thrusting the rod deep into the soft, loamy soil, young Warlow threw his whole weight on the instrument, which penetrated to the depth of several feet with little difficulty. On meeting with no obstruction, he withdrew the rod; and after marking the spot with one of the stakes which he had provided, he began again to prosecute the search one step further south.
The precaution of marking the place where he had sunk the rod was for the purpose of systematizing the search, thus avoiding confusion. In fact, these careful details were but an indication of the practical nature of the young Fortune Hunter, which, even on this weird night, strongly asserted its sway.
While the leaves murmured and whispered, as if striving to tell of the tragedies that had marred this spot—of the mystery that seemed to haunt the very air around—Clifford still pursued his investigations, patiently and in silence, only pausing to draw a deeper breath or a sigh of disappointment at each fruitless effort, as he toiled onward into the deep shadows near the bank of the stream.