She had wakened with a start on the morning following the storm and her strange experiences in the cabin. The sun, streaming through a small window, had awakened her. At first she had been utterly unable to account for her strange surroundings. Then, like a flash, it all came to her. The aged giant, Bud Wax with his arm in a sling, the women, the other man, little Hallie, the storm,—all the strange and mysterious doings of the night flashed through her mind and left her wondering.
The very window through which the sunlight streamed suggested mystery. Whence had it come? These mysterious people who lived beyond the stone gateway had come from below, had travelled up Laurel Creek and had not come back to the settlement. Where had the glass for the window come from? Had it been taken from some older cabin? This log cabin seemed quite new. Had these strange people some hidden trail to the outside world? Ransom Turner had said there was no mountain pass at the head of Laurel Branch. Could it be possible that he was wrong?
All the wondering was cut short by thought of little Hallie. How was she? Had consciousness returned? Perhaps she needed care at this very moment.
With this thought uppermost in her mind, Florence sprang from her bed, drew on her outer garments, then pushed open the door that led to the other room.
She found Hallie feverish, and somewhat delirious. Upon discovering this, without begging leave of her strange host and with not one thought for her own safety, she set herself about the task of bringing the bloom of health back to the child’s cheek.
The people about her brought the things she asked for, then stood or sat quietly about as they might had she been a doctor.
During the course of the day some twenty men and women, and quite as many children, came to peek shyly in at the door, or to enter and sit whispering together.
“More people in this neighborhood than one would think,” was Florence’s mental comment.
A day came and went. Hallie improved slightly. The next day she was so much better that Florence took time for a stroll out of doors. It was then that she received something of a shock. Having wandered down the creek trail until she was near to the stone gateway, she saw a tall, gaunt, young mountaineer step out into the path. With a rifle over his arm, he began to pace back and forth like a sentry on duty.
“I—I wonder—” she whispered to herself, “if he would let me pass?”