"Listen to the child!" cried Betty gayly, while the other girls laughed. "And we haven't begun to dig yet. Hold your horses, Amy dear, hold your horses."
They did this very thing literally the next moment, for they came in sight of the queer little cabin of the man whom the natives called the Hermit of Gold Run.
Quickly they jumped down, tethered the horses as they had done before on the day when they had first made the acquaintance of this remarkable man, and started rather hesitantly down the path toward the house.
As they came nearer the haunting strains of the music that had puzzled them before once more floated out through the open windows and they paused, lost once again in the spell of it.
The music stopped, and they went on, hardly knowing what their next move was to be, yet drawn irresistibly by their curiosity. Then once more they heard the violin, but evidently the mood of the player had changed. The melody fraught with pathos, wailing, pleading, no longer reached them. The theme had changed—light, airy, sparkling, it reminded the girls of fairies dancing on the grass in the moonlight.
Mollie grasped Betty's arm.
"I know that!" she cried excitedly. "It's something of Chopin's, a nocturne, I think. Girls, I know where I heard that selection played just that way before."
They gazed at her, their eyes asking the question before their lips could form it.
"At the Hostess House!" cried Mollie. "Don't you remember that concert we gave with some of the great artists?"
"That big benefit!" cried Betty excitedly. "You've got it, Mollie! That's what I was trying to think of!"