since the stage was pulled off. What was here then wouldn't be here
now--not if it could be eat up or burnt up."

"So you think this is the place?" the old gentleman repeated. His face was
quite pale; he looked about him shrinkingly, with a latent, apprehensive
excitement strangely out of keeping with the void stillness of the
hollow,--a spot which seemed to claim as little on the score of human
interest or association as any they had passed on their long road hither.

"Well, it's just this way, Mr. Withers: here's the holler, and here's the
stomped place where the sheep have camped, and the cattle trails getherin'
from everywheres to the water, and the young rabbit brush that's sprung up
since the plains was burnt over. If this ain't Pilgrim Station, we're lost
pilgrims ourselves, I guess. We hain't passed it; it's time we come to it,
and there ain't no road but this. As I put it up, this here has got to be
the place."

"I believe you, Mr. Kinney," the old man solemnly confirmed him. "Something
tells me that this is the spot. I might almost say," he added in a lower
tone to his companion, while a slight shiver passed over him in the hot
sunlight, "that a voice cries to us from the ground!"

Those in front had not heard him. After a pause Mr. Thane looked round
again, smiled tentatively, and said, "Well?"

"Well, Daphne, my dear, hadn't we better get out?" Mr. Withers conjoined.

She who answered to this pretty pagan name did so mutely by rising in
her place. The wind had moulded her light-colored veil close to her
half-defined features, to the outline of her cheeks and low-knotted hair;