"It contains--map--description of mine and locality--yours--say you will take it--Grace, quick, say"----
His head had again sunk to the floor. She stooped to raise it. As she did so a slight shadow darkened the opening by the door. She raised her eyes quickly and saw the face of Dumphy!
She did not shrink this time; but, with a sudden instinct, she turned to Devarges, and said--
She raised her eyes again defiantly, but the face had disappeared.
"Thank you," said the old man. His lips moved again, but without a sound. A strange film had begun to gather in his eyes.
He did not speak. "He is dying," thought the young girl as a new and sudden fear overcame her. She rose quickly and crossed hurriedly to her brother and shook him. A prolonged inspiration, like a moan, was the only response. For a moment she glanced wildly around the room and then ran to the door.
There was no response. She climbed up through the tunnel-like opening. It was already quite dark, and a few feet beyond the hut nothing was distinguishable. She cast a rapid backward glance, and then, with a sudden desperation, darted forward into the darkness. At the same moment two figures raised themselves from behind the shadow of the mound and slipped down the tunnel into the hut--Mrs. Brackett and Mr. Dumphy. They might have been the meanest predatory animals--so stealthy, so eager, so timorous, so crouching, and yet so agile were their motions. They ran sometimes upright, and sometimes on all fours, hither and thither. They fell over each other in their eagerness, and struck and spat savagely at each other in the half darkness. They peered into corners, they rooted in the dying embers and among the ashes, they groped among the skins and blankets, they smelt and sniffed at every article. They paused at last apparently unsuccessful, and glared at each other.
"They must have eaten it," said Mrs. Brackett, in a hoarse whisper.
"It didn't look like suthin' to eat," said Dumphy.
"Why should they rub it? It takes off the cracklin' skins," he said.
"They've got such fine stomachs!" answered Mrs. Bracket, with an oath.
Dumphy was still aghast with the importance of his discovery.
"He said he knew where there was more!" he whispered eagerly.