But what was that? She caught a sound of heavier movements in the leaves.
Instantly she was on her knees, peering through the bushes. What could it have been? Surely not a squirrel. Too heavy for that. There it was again! Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!
Then again there was silence, a silence that was frightening. The girl felt the hair rising at the back of her neck. She was alone on the mountain. Was it a bear? There were bears on the mountain. Was it a man? An enemy?
As she glanced about she realized with a little burst of fright that, like sparrows at sight of a hawk, the squirrels had vanished. This indeed was an ominous token.
Springing to her feet, she thrust her long barreled pistol into an inside pocket of her jacket, where it could be snatched out at a moment’s notice. Yet, even as she did this, she realized how absurd a weapon is a long barrelled .22 when one faces real danger.
For a moment, standing like a wild deer, poised on tip-toe ready for instant flight, she stood there listening. All she heard was the wild beating of her own heart and the faint tink-tank of cow bells in the valley below.
The sound of these bells increased her fear. Their very faintness told her the distance she had wandered away over the mountain.
The next moment, walking on tip-toe, scarcely breathing, with her pistol snugly hidden in her coat, she was making good her retreat.
It was not until Monday morning that the real truth of this mountain experience came to her. Then it came with a suddenness and force that was strong enough to bowl over even a man of strong heart.
She was on her way to school when Ransom Turner, having called her into the store and closed the door, said in a low husky tone that told her of deep feeling: