“It was good of you to brave the danger,” she said sweetly. “I have had a premonition of some tragedy overhanging, since we found the sheep.”
“Well, Professor! Hello, Miss Dolly!” called Haynes, as he swung up on a trot. “Are you all right? Better hurry in. There’s a storm coming.”
“It is something besides a storm that brought you gentlemen out on a search for us,” said Professor Ravenden shrewdly. “While properly appreciative, I should be glad to have an explanation.” The explanation came swiftly, from the direction of the sea. It was a long-drawn, high-pitched scream. There was in it a cadence of mortal terror; the last agony rang shrill and unmistakable from its quivering echoes. Miss Ravenden’s horse bounded in the air; but Colton’s weight on the bridle brought it down shaking.
“That was a horse,” said the girl tremulously. “Poor thing!”
“In dire extremity, if I mistake not,” added the professor. “I am beginning to feel an interest which I trust is not unscientific in this succession of phenomena.”
“I think,” said Haynes quickly, “that the house is the place for us just now. That’s the end of your brother’s horse,” he added to Colton in a low tone.
When Dick Colton lifted the girl from her saddle at the front porch he said to her: “Miss Ravenden, may I ask you to promise me something?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl, in sudden apprehension. “What is it?”
“That you will not go out alone on the grassland again, nor go out even with your father after dusk, until Mr. Haynes or I tell you it is safe?”
“I promise. But won’t you tell me what you have found out?”