“Peter Piper,” said the Indian girl, nodding after the man.
“You mean that’s his name?” Florence asked in surprise.
The girl nodded.
“Oh!” Mary exclaimed. “And did he pick a peck of prickly pears?”
The Indian girl stared at her until they all burst into fits of laughter.
For all that, it was a sober Florence who journeyed back to Palmer. Strange words were passing through her mind. “Maybe it’s haunted. Raise anything. Can’t sell anything. No market—you want things that don’t grow on the ground.” Her world seemed to have taken on a whirling motion that, like clouds blown by the wind, showed first a bright, then a darker side. What was to come of it all?
“A ticket to adventure,” she thought at last. “Perhaps that man was more right than he knew.”
CHAPTER III
SEVEN GOLDEN CANDLESTICKS
Three days later Florence found herself seated on the shore of the little lake that lay at the edge of their claim. She was alone. “How still it is,” she whispered. Not a leaf moved. The dark surface of the lake lay before her like black glass.
“The land of great silence,” she thought. She shuddered and knew not why.