Chapter XXX THE VISION IN THE HUT
There is, perhaps, no more enthralling sound than the far but sure approach of someone who comes unlooked-for to a lonely place. The two men who were keeping vigil became certain that travelers were ascending the steep zig-zags of Deer. They looked at one another in apprehensive silence, and went softly out to that side of the house nearest the road. The young moon had set, and there was cloud overhead. Almost an hour's journey below them the creak of wheel, the sound of hoof, came faint but nearer. The two house dogs stood by the men, a growl in their throats.
Bertha came downstairs and out to them, a shawl over her head. The mountain nights had been growing colder; the air was bleak and dry.
"Hermie is terribly ill," she said. "She has cried till the pain in her head is anguish—and who can possibly be coming?"
Then she turned indignantly to Alden. "Is this some plan of your arranging?"
Alden denied in dispirited tones, and suggested that perhaps some travelers had lost their way.
"People don't usually climb a mountain by mistake," she retorted.