rly impossible attitudes and far
too aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master Hickory's almost upright
_pose_, with tightly folded arms, and darkly frowning brows was felt
to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The brief
interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around her in
her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and uttered a cry.
In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked her doll,
and was now regarding it with round-eyed horror!

"Lady Mary's hair's gone!" she cried, convulsively grasping the
Pirate Hickory's legs.

[Illustration]

Hickory at once recognised the battered doll under the aristocratic
title which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at the
bald and battered head.

"Ha! ha!" he said, hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"

For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative
Polly. But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.

"Lady Maley's pig-tail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartz
stone allee same Polly, me go fetchee."

"No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in the
proximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's exorcising
power, was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!" Even Polly
(dropping a maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protested
against this breaking up of the little circle. "Go to bed," she
said, authoritatively, "and sleep until morning."

Thus admonished, the pirates again retired. This time effectively,
for worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness of
the cave, they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber.
Polly withheld from joining them, by official and maternal
responsibility sat and blinked at them affectionately.

[Illustration]

Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination and
mystery of the place and the solitude that encompassed her. Beyond
the pleasant shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of
mountain and valley through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from
the depths below and occasionally hang before the cavern like a
veil. Long waves of spicy heat rolling up the mountain from the
valley brought her the smell of pine trees and bay and made the
landscape swim before her eyes. She could hear the far off cry of
teamsters on some unseen road; she could see the far off cloud of
dust following the mountain stage coach, whose rattling wheels she
could not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not quite afraid; she