omely marked snake skin, and some rare shells that had been picked
up on the Gulf coast. Of course the boys had to examine each new
treasure as it was discovered. One thing after another delayed them
until it was dusk even on the porch where they stood, and in the woods
below a deep twilight had fallen.

Every minute that had sped by so rapidly for the boys, seemed an age to
the captive Virginia. Her arms ached from the strain of their unusual
position. Swarms of gnats flew about, stinging her face, and mosquitoes
buzzed teasingly around her ears. She was unable to move a finger to
drive them away.

When the boys had been gone fifteen minutes she thought they must have
been away hours. At the end of half an hour she was wild with impatience
to get loose, but, thinking they might return any minute, she made no
sign of her discomfort. She would be as heroic as the bravest brave ever
tortured by cruel savages. As long as it was light she kept up her
courage, but presently it began to grow dark under the great
beech-trees. A frog down by the spring set up a dismal croaking. What if
they should not come back, and her grandmother and Aunt Allison should
miss the train, and have to stay in the city all night! Then nobody
would come to set her free, and she would have to stay in the lonely
woods all by herself, tied to a tree, with her hands behind her back.

At that thought she began calling, "Keith! Keith! Malcolm! Oh, Malcolm!"
but only an echo came back to her, as it had to the dying Minnehaha,--a
far-away echo that mocked her with its teasing cry of "Mal-colm!" Call
after call went ringing through the woods, but nobody answered.
Nobody came.

There was a rustling through the leaves behind her, as of a snake
gliding around the tree. She was not afraid of snakes in the daytime,
and when she was unbound, but she shrieked and turned cold at the
thought of one wriggling across her feet while she was powerless to get
away. Every time a twig snapped, or there was a fluttering in the
bushes, she strained her eyes to see what horrible thing might be
creeping up toward her. She had no thought that live Indians might be
lurking about, but all the terrible stories she had ever heard, of the
days of Daniel Boone and the early settlers, came back to haunt the
woods with a nameless dread.

She felt that she was standing on the real Kentucky that the Indians
meant, when they gave the State its name. "_Dark and bloody ground! Dark
an