The message did come, a message of great good news. It came on the wings of the wind, came to Mrs. McAlpin and Marion, late that very afternoon.
In the meantime, on the mountain-side near the cabin in which Florence was hiding, strange things were happening. Florence was wondering about the identity of the rough mountain men who had made her prisoner. Were they feudists? Or moonshiners suspecting her of being a spy? Or real spies themselves, employed by the great mining corporation to trap her? Or were they just plain robbers?
Such were the thoughts running through her mind when she caught the sound of a cheery note outside the cabin. It was the chee-chee-chee, to-wheet, to-wheet, to-wheet of a mountain wren. The song brightened her spirits and allayed her fears.
“As long as he keeps up his joyous notes I need have no fear,” she told herself. “The appearance of someone near would frighten him into silence.
“Dear little friend,” she whispered, “how wonderful you are! When human friends were here you came each year to make your nest in some niche in their cabin. Now they are gone. Who knows where? But you, faithful to their dream of happiness, return to sing your merry song among the ruins.”
Even as she whispered this, her ear caught a far different note, a dread sound—the long-drawn note of a hound.
As this grew louder and louder her heart beat rapidly with fear.
“On my trail,” she thought with dread.
As the sound began to grow fainter she felt sure that the hunters, if hunters they were, had passed on up over the main trail. Hardly had the hope been born when it was suddenly dashed aside. The solid thump-thump of footsteps sounded outside the cabin, then ended.
For a moment there was silence, such a silence as she had not experienced in all her days. Flies had ceased to buzz. The little brown wren had flown away.