On the evening of the day into which so much surprise and excitement had been crowded, she took little Hallie by the hand and together they scrambled up the steep mountain side until, flushed and quite out of breath, they threw themselves down on a bed of moss beside the cool stream.
Hallie did not remain long in repose. Restless as a bee, she was soon up and away. First she chased a chipmunk to his rocky lair, then she busied herself in the engrossing task of hunting the peculiar “sang” leaf which might mark the hiding place of a treasure of ginsing roots. Dressed as she was in a bright yellow dress, she reminded Marion of a yellow butterfly flitting from leaf to leaf, from blossom to blossom.
All too soon she was quite forgotten, for as the shadows lengthened Marion thought of the problems and possibilities that lay before them. They had decided to help elect a school trustee. Ransom Turner would run. Many people believed in him. Were there enough to elect him? She hoped so, yet she doubted. Florence had said they would not buy votes, and they would not. But how about Black Blevens? He would force men to vote for him as trustee. He would use every means, fair or foul, to win. “And what of the free school we are teaching now?” she thought. “Will he try to interfere with that?” She decided it would be well to be on guard.
“Surely,” she thought to herself, “there are thrills and adventures enough to be had down here in the Cumberlands. Yes, and mystery as well—even the mystery of Confederate gold.”
She was thinking of Uncle Billie Gibson and what he had said about the gold that haunted the whipsawed house. She found it hard to believe that the Confederate States had coined gold, and harder still to think that there might be a quantity of it hidden away in the old house.
“But if there should be,” she caught her breath, “if we should find it! Each coin would be worth a fabulous sum. Every museum in the country would want one, and every private collector. If it were only true,” she whispered low, and the brook seemed to murmur, “true, true, true.”
Then of a sudden, rudely awakened from her dreams, she sprang to her feet. A piercing scream had struck her ears. This was followed by another and yet another.
“Hallie!” she exclaimed, too frightened to move. “Hallie! What can have happened to her?”
At that instant there flashed before her mind a picture of a face in a square of light, an ugly face with bushy eyebrows, unshaven cheeks and beady eyes—the face of the strange man she had seen at the cabin window.