第10章 THE HOUSE THAT WAS NOT(2)

But then, her eyes were so blurred with the glory she had been gazing at, that she might easily have been mistaken.

"I say, Bart, why don't you speak? If there's any one around to associate with, Ishould think you'd let me have the benefit of their company.It isn't as funny as you think, staying here alone days and days.""You ain't gettin' homesick, be you, sweet-heart?" cried Bart, putting his arms around her."You ain't gettin' tired of my society, be yeh?"It took some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner, but at length Flora was able to return to her original topic.

"But the shack, Bart! Who lives there, anyway?""I'm not acquainted with 'em," said Bart, sharply."Ain't them biscuits done, Flora?"Then, of course, she grew obstinate.

"Those biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about that house, and why you never spoke of it, and why nobody ever comes down the road from there.Some one lives there I know, for in the mornings and at night I see the smoke coming out of the chimney.""Do you now?" cried Bart, opening his eyes and looking at her with unfeigned inter-est."Well, do you know, sometimes I've fancied I seen that too?""Well, why not," cried Flora, in half anger.

"Why shouldn't you?"

"See here, Flora, take them biscuits out an'

listen to me.There ain't no house there.

Hello! I didn't know you'd go for to drop the biscuits.Wait, I'll help you pick 'em up.

By cracky, they're hot, ain't they? What you puttin' a towel over 'em for? Well, you set down here on my knee, so.Now you look over at that there house.You see it, don't yeh? Well, it ain't there! No! I saw it the first week I was out here.I was jus' half dyin', thinkin' of you an' wonderin' why you didn't write.That was the time you was mad at me.So I rode over there one day -- lookin'

up company, so t' speak -- and there wa'n't no house there.I spent all one Sunday lookin'

for it.Then I spoke to Jim Geary about it.

He laughed an' got a little white about th'

gills, an' he said he guessed I'd have to look a good while before I found it.He said that there shack was an ole joke.""Why -- what --"

"Well, this here is th' story he tol' me.

He said a man an' his wife come out here t'

live an' put up that there little place.An'

she was young, you know, an' kind o' skeery, and she got lonesome.It worked on her an'

worked on her, an' one day she up an' killed the baby an' her husband an' herself.Th'

folks found 'em and buried 'em right there on their own ground.Well, about two weeks after that, th' house was burned down.Don't know how.Tramps, maybe.Anyhow, it burned.At least, I guess it burned!""You guess it burned!"

"Well, it ain't there, you know."

"But if it burned the ashes are there."

"All right, girlie, they're there then.Now let's have tea."This they proceeded to do, and were happy and cheerful all evening, but that didn't keep Flora from rising at the first flush of dawn and stealing out of the house.She looked away over west as she went to the barn and there, dark and firm against the horizon, stood the little house against the pellucid sky of morn-ing.She got on Ginger's back -- Ginger being her own yellow broncho -- and set off at a hard pace for the house.It didn't appear to come any nearer, but the objects which had seemed to be beside it came closer into view, and Flora pressed on, with her mind steeled for anything.But as she approached the poplar windbreak which stood to the north of the house, the little shack waned like a shadow before her.It faded and dimmed before her eyes.

She slapped Ginger's flanks and kept him going, and she at last got him up to the spot.

But there was nothing there.The bunch grass grew tall and rank and in the midst of it lay a baby's shoe.Flora thought of picking it up, but something cold in her veins withheld her.Then she grew angry, and set Ginger's head toward the place and tried to drive him over it.But the yellow broncho gave one snort of fear, gathered himself in a bunch, and then, all tense, leaping muscles, made for home as only a broncho can.