The Claim Jumpers by Stewart Edward White
page 49 of 197 (24%)
page 49 of 197 (24%)
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we get ready to go home, where nothing can get him."
He deposited the squirrel in the cleft of a rock, quite out of sight, and stood back as though pleased. "There, that's fine!" he concluded. With one of those instantaneous transitions, which seemed so natural to her, and yet which appeared to reach not at all to her real nature, she had changed from an aspect of passionate grief to one of solemn inquiry. Bennington found her looking at him with the soul brimming to the very surface of her great eyes. "I think you may come up on my rock," she said simply after a moment. They skirted the base of the dike together until they had reached the westernmost side. There Bennington was shown the means of ascent, which he had overlooked before because of his too close examination of the cliff itself. At a distance of about twenty feet from the dike grew a large pine tree, the lowest branch of which extended directly over the little plateau and about a foot above it. Next to the large pine stood two smaller saplings side by side and a few inches apart. These had been converted into a ladder by the nailing across of rustic rounds. "That's how I get up," explained the girl. "Now you go back around the corner again, and when I'm ready I'll call." Bennington obeyed. In a few moments he heard again the voice in the air summoning him to approach and climb. He ascended the natural ladder easily, but when within six or eight feet of the large branch that reached across to the dike, the smaller |
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