The child was whispering back at them. “We are coming to the bridge. It’s a very long bridge, and spooky. I think we better tiptoe across it, but we mustn’t run. The gallopin’ goblins’ll come after us if we do; besides, there’s an old rusty sign on the bridge that says, ‘No trotting across the bridge.’”
The next moment they felt a plank surface beneath their feet and knew they were on the bridge. It must have been a very ancient bridge. This road had never been remodelled to fit the need of automobiles. The planks rattled and creaked in an ominous manner in spite of their tiptoeing.
“I wonder how much more there is of it,” Florence groaned in a whisper when they had gone on tiptoes for what seemed an endless space of time. “If my toes don’t break, I’m sure my shoes will.”
As for Lucile, she was thinking her own thoughts. She was telling herself that if it were not for the fact that this night’s performance gave promise of being a link in the chain of circumstances which were to be used in dragging the gargoyle’s secret from its lair, she would demand that the child turn about and lead them straight back to the city.
Since she had faith that somehow the mystery was to be solved and her many worries and perplexities brought to an end, she tiptoed doggedly on. And it was well that she did, for the events of this one night were destined to bring about strange and astounding revelations. She was not to see the light of day again before the gargoyle’s secret would be fully revealed, but had she known the series of thrilling events which would lead up to that triumphant hour, she would have shrunk back and whispered, “No, no, I can’t go all that way.”
Often and often we find this true in life; we face seemingly unbearable situations—something is to happen to us, we are to go somewhere, be something different, do some seemingly undoable thing and we say, “We cannot endure it,” yet we pass through it as through a fog to come out smiling on the other side. We are better, happier and stronger for the experience. It was to be so with Lucile.
The bridge was crossed at last. More dark and silent woods came to flank their path. Then out of the distance there loomed great bulks of darker masses.
“Mountains, I’d say they were,” whispered Lucile, “if it weren’t for the fact that I know there are none within five hundred miles.”
For a time they trudged along in silence. Then suddenly Florence whispered:
“Oh, I know! Dunes! Sand dunes! Now I know where we are. We are near the lake shore. I was out here somewhere for a week last summer. By day it’s wonderful; regular mountains of sand that has been washed up and blown up from the bed of the lake. Some of them are hundreds of feet above the level of the lake. There are trees growing on them and everything.”