freed herself as
unobtrusively as possible, and looked at him with wide eyes.

"You ask Clark. He'll tell you--maybe. Good Injun's scared clean off the
ranch--you can see that for yourself. He said he couldn't be hired to
spend another night here. He thinks it's a bad sign. That's the Injun of
it. They believe in spirits and signs and things."

Evadna turned thoughtful. "And didn't he tell you what he--that is, if
he found out--you said he went after it--"

"He wouldn't say a blamed thing about it," Gene complained sincerely.
"He said there wasn't anything--he told us it was a screech-owl."

"Oh!" Evadna gave a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm going to ask Clark what
it was--I'm just crazy about ghost stories, only I never would DARE
leave the house after dark if there are funny noises and things,
really. I think you boys must be the bravest fellows, to sleep out
there--without even your mother with you!"

She smiled the credulous smile of ignorant innocence and pulled the gate
open.

"Jack promised to take me up to Hartley to-day," she explained over her
shoulder. "When I come back, you'll show me just where it was, won't
you, Gene? You don't suppose it would walk in the grove in the daytime,
do you? Because I'm awfully fond of the grove, and I do hope it will be
polite enough to confine its perambulations entirely to the conventional
midnight hour."

Gene did not make any reply. Indeed, he seemed wholly absorbed in
staring after her and wondering just how much or how little of it she
meant.

Evadna looked back, midway between the gate and the stable, and, when
she saw him standing exactly as she had left him, she waved her hand and
smiled. She was still smiling when she came up to where Jack was giving
those last, tentative twitches and pats which prove whether a saddle is
properly set and cinched; and she would not say what it was that amused
her. All the way up the grade, she smiled and grew thoughtful by turns;
and, when Jack mentioned the fact that Good Indian had gone off mad
about something, she contented herself with the simple, unqualified
statement that she was glad of it.

Grant's horse dozed before the store, and Grant himself sat upon a bench
in the narrow strip of shade on the porch. Evadna, therefore, refused
absolutely to dismount there, though her errand had been a post-office
money order. Jack was already on the ground when she made known her
decision; and she left him in the middle of his expost