Chuck Wilson, they told me. They was up--old Interpreter, he can't do
nothin' to nobody--he ain't got no legs."

Gravely she considered with him the possible dangers of the proposed
adventure. "Billy Rand has got legs."

"He can't hear nothin', though--can't talk neither," said the leader of
the expedition. "An' besides maybe he ain't there--we might catch him
out. What d'yer say? Will we chance it?"

She looked up doubtfully toward the unknown land above. "I dunno, will
we?"

"Skinny an' Chuck, they said the Interpreter give 'em cookies--an' told
'em stories too."

"Cookies, Gee! Go ahead--I'm a-comin'."

That tiny house high on the cliff at the head of the old, zigzag
stairway, up which the children now climbed with many doubtful stops
and questioning fears, is a landmark of interest not only to Millsburgh
but to the country people for miles around.

Perched on the perilous brink of that curving wall of rocks, with its
low, irregular, patched and weather-beaten roof, and its rough-boarded
and storm-beaten walls half hidden in a tangle of vines and bushes, the
little hut looks, from a distance, as though it might once have been
the strange habitation of some gigantic winged creature of prehistoric
ages. The place may be reached from a seldom-used road that leads along
the steep hillside, a quarter of a mile back from the edge of the