"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 pigtail 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 till 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.

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 stagecoach, whose