And yet she had somehow felt that she must and would go through the natural gateway to the little known valley of mystery.
Now, as she stood looking at the moon that shone down upon it all, she felt the lure stronger than ever.
“Some day,” she whispered, “I will go up there. I feel sure that I must.”
Little did she dream, as she stood there until the chill night air drove her inside, that in less than a week up there at the head of Laurel Branch she was to enter upon the strangest, most mysterious adventure of her young life.
Before she fell asleep she wondered a little about the strange experiences that had come to her on Ages Creek. Would she ever know why they had made her prisoner there? When would the title be proved up on the Powell coal tract? Would it ever be? Would they get the commission?
CHAPTER IX
BEYOND FORBIDDEN PORTALS
“Uncle Billie, has the whipsawed house an attic?”
Florence asked the question eagerly as she met her venerable friend on the creek road next day.
“Sure enough! Now has it? I most forgit.” The old man scratched his head.
“It hasn’t a stairway, nor an opening for a ladder, but there must be space up there, and if there’s space there must be something there.”