“Perhaps we ought to have brought some one with us––if anything––” said Mary.
“No, no; better wait and see, before making a stir.”
It was a good half hour’s walk up the hill, and every moment of the time seemed heavily freighted with foreboding. They said no more until they reached the spot where the boys had found the edge of the bluff torn away. There, for a space of about two feet only, back from the brink, the sparse grass was trampled, and the earth showed marks of heels and in places the sod was freshly torn up.
“There’s been something happened here, you see,” said Charlie Dean.
“Here is where a foot has been braced to keep from being pushed over; see, Mary? And here again.”
“I see indeed.” Mary looked, and stooping, picked something from the ground that glinted through the loosened earth. She held it on her open palm toward Bertrand, and the two boys looked intently at it. Her husband did not touch it, but glanced quickly into her eyes and then at the boys. Then her fingers closed over it, and taking her handkerchief she tied it in one corner securely.
“Did you ever see anything like it, boys?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. It’s a watch charm, isn’t it? Or what?”
“I suppose it must be.”